Noah Feldman, Columnist

Defamation Suit Against Trump Can Wait

The courts have allowed presidents to be sued, but it's still not a good idea.

April 2, 2017 at 2:00 PM UTC

Noah Feldman is a Bloomberg Opinion columnist. A professor of law at Harvard University, he is author, most recently, of “To Be a Jew Today: A New Guide to God, Israel, and the Jewish People."

Lawyer Gloria Allred and Summer Zervos.
Photographer: Mark Ralston/AFP/Getty Images

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With the settlement approved last week in the Trump University case, Donald Trump’s lawyers were free to shift their attention to another civil case with the potential to be a nuisance to his presidency. They are poised to argue that he can’t be sued in state court while he’s president.

The U.S. Supreme Court allowed Paula Jones to sue Bill Clinton while he was president -- but that was a federal suit, not a state suit. The difference between state and federal gives the courts an opening to make Trump temporarily immune from private suits while he’s in office. And if they’re wise, the courts will do exactly that. The practical consequences of the Jones case were disastrous for the republic. And no matter how much you might think Trump is a lawbreaker, his civil comeuppance should come from Congress, not the courts.