A federal judge rejected former President Donald Trump s effort to dismiss writer E. Jean Carrolls defamation suit against him on Thursday, saying his claims of absolute presidential immunity were not a get out of damages liability free card.

U.S. District Judge Lewis Kaplan in New York issued a lengthy ruling after Trumps attorneys attempted to get the case thrown out, claiming the former president was protected by free speech rights and presidential immunity. But Trump failed to mention that immunity for three years, a period Kaplan said was too long.

The conduct at issue here consists not only of what Mr. Trump did (i.e., make public statements in response to Ms. Carrolls accusation) but also, and importantly, the content of his statements, Kaplan wrote. Mr. Trump did not merely deny Ms. Carrolls accusation of sexual assault. Instead, he accused Ms. Carroll of lying about him sexually assaulting her in order to increase sales of her book, gain publicity, and/or carry out a political agenda.

Even assuming that the presidents decision publicly to deny an accusation of personal wrongdoing comes within the outer perimeter of his official duties, it does not follow that the presidents own personal attacks on his or her accuser equally fall within that boundary, the judge continued.

Alina Habba, an attorney for Trump, said the team disagreed with the court and will be taking the appropriate steps to preserve all viable defenses.

Carroll has sued for at least $10 million in damages , claiming Trump defamed her after she accused him, in a 2019 book, of raping her in a department store in the 1990s. Trump called the allegations in her book totally false and said he couldnt have assaulted her because she wasnt his type. A judge allowed Carroll to revise her defamation case earlier this month to include comments the former president made on CNN on May 10, a day after she won $5 million in damages in her 2022 civil case, when he called the writer a wack job who made up a story that included a fake assault.

The judge said Thursday that presidential immunity was meant to protect the president from distraction from public duties but did not amount to a get out of damages liability free card that permits the president to say or do anything he or she desires even if that conduct is disconnected entirely from an official function.

Subjecting the president to damages liability for making a personal attack that is unrelated to the presidents official responsibilities would not threaten to distract the president from his or her official duties, Kaplan said.

Trump countersued Carroll earlier this week, saying she had defamed him after she said on CNN once again that Trump had raped her. A federal jury found Trump liable for sexual abuse, but not rape, in the May verdict, determining she had proved her claim that shed been assaulted by him in the 1990s.

Trumps filing is thus nothing more than his latest effort to delay accountability for what a jury has already found to be his defamation of E. Jean Carroll, Carrolls lawyer, Roberta Kaplan, said in a statement this week. (The attorney is not related to the judge.) But whether he likes it or not, that accountability is coming very soon.

The revised defamation trial is set to begin in January.