Jeffrey Clark, the Justice Department attorney who reportedly schemed with the president to oust the acting attorney general, also played a leading role in bringing the DOJ to the president’s defense in a defamation case filed against him personally. The New York Times reported Friday that Clark and Donald Trump had hatched a plan to push out acting Attorney General Jeffrey Rosen in order to cast doubt on the results of the presidential election in Georgia. According to federal court filings, Clark also served as one of the lead attorneys for Trump in the suit filed against him by E. Jean Carroll, an advice columnist who accuses him of defamation. Trump has denied Carroll’s claim that he raped her in a Manhattan department store decades ago.

The Justice Department made the controversial move in September to defend Trump in the lawsuit, which was filed against him in his personal capacity, saying Trump was “acting within the scope of his office as President of the United States.” Clark appears to have signed off personally on the decision for the DOJ to intervene, according to the court documents. Carroll wrote on Twitter Friday of Clark, “This is the chump who filed the DOJ case against me, saying it was the President's job to slander women. The Trump Presidency was corrupt right down to the core of its spleen.”