Trump rape accuser E. Jean Carroll says she is 'stunned and speechless' over the Justice Department's decision to skip oral arguments in its bid to replace the president as the defendant in her defamation suit

Donald Trump rape accuser E. Jean Carroll says she is 'stunned' by the Justice Department's decision to skip oral arguments on whether the United States can replace the president as the defendant in her defamation lawsuit.

Carroll, 52, arrived at the Daniel Patrick Moynihan Courthouse in Manhattan on Wednesday afternoon for a hearing on the DOJ's request to substitute Trump - but the lead lawyer for the opposition never showed. 

The DOJ asked to postpone the hearing earlier in the day after learning that Acting Assistant Attorney General William Lane could not appear in person because he had traveled from Virginia, which is on New York's mandatory quarantine list. 

US District Judge Lewis Kaplan denied the request but gave Lane the chance to present arguments via phone, as Carroll watched from the top row of the jury box.  

Lane turned down the offer and told the judge the government would rest on written arguments already submitted in the case. 

'I'm stunned, stunned, and actually speechless, which is unusual,' Carroll told reporters after the hearing abruptly concluded.  

In a statement to DailyMail.com, Carroll's lawyers said: 'This is unquestionably a new low for DOJ, which should at least appear in open court to answer for the outrageous positions that it has taken here.'

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E Jean Carroll leaves the Daniel Patrick Moynihan United States Courthouse in Manhattan on Wednesday for a hearing on the Justice Department's request to substitute Donald Trump as the defendant in her defamation suit

A court sketch shows Carroll sitting alongside her lawyers during Wednesday's proceedings, which were derailed when the the top row of the jury box

Speaking to reporters after the hearing, Carroll said she was 'stunned and speechless' over the DOJ's decision to skip oral arguments on their substitution request

In her lawsuit, Carroll alleged that Trump defamed her in 2019 when he came out to deny her allegation that he sexually assaulted her in a Bergdorf Goodman dressing room in New York City in 1996. 

Trump at the time asserted that Carroll was lying to advance a secret political conspiracy and sell books and that she had falsely accused other men of rape. He also claimed he had never met Carroll - even though they'd been photographed together - and said: 'She's not my type.'  

The DOJ is seeking to replace Trump as the defendant on the grounds that he was acting in an official capacity when he made the comments about Carroll, because her claims related to his fitness for office. 

If the DOJ succeeds in substituting the US as the defendant, it would put taxpayers on the hook for any potential payout in a lawsuit seeking damages and a retraction of the statements.

Trump is seen outside the White House on Wednesday as the DOJ handled the Carroll suit in Manhattan

Carroll's lawyers have insisted that Trump cannot use his office as a shield from the suit, arguing in a filing last month: 'There is not a single person in the United States - not the President and not anyone else - whose job description includes slandering women who they sexually assaulted.' 

Roberta Kaplan, one of Carroll's attorneys, reacted to Wednesday's turn of events by saying it was 'shocking ... for the government to just, essentially surrender, and not even try to argue the case'.

'Frankly, I'm astonished at what happened today,' Kaplan said.

'In decades of litigating in courtrooms throughout the country, I've never seen the Department of Justice decline to make an oral argument when all that it meant here would be having to argue by phone,' she told reporters. 

Carroll's lawyers had offered to answer any questions Judge Kaplan - who has no relation to Roberta Kaplan - might have during the hearing, but he did not ask any. 

Judge Kaplan did not indicate when he will rule on the DOJ's motion.  

Carroll arrives at court ahead of Wednesday's hearing in her defamation suit. The advice columnist accused Trump of raping her in a department store dressing room in the mid-90s

In a statement to DailyMail.com, Carroll's lawyers (pictured with her outside court Wednesday) said: 'This is unquestionably a new low for DOJ, which should at least appear in open court to answer for the outrageous positions that it has taken here'

Trump claimed that he had never met Carroll, but the advice columnist and author submitted photographic evidence that they had in the lawsuit. The photo above shows Trump and first wife Ivana (left and right) with Carroll and her then-husband John Johnson

Carroll, who was a longtime Elle magazine advice columnist until being fired last December amid her legal battle with Trump, first aired her rape allegation in her book What Do We Need Men For? A Modest Proposal in July 2019.  

She wrote in the memoir, which had an excerpt featured in New York Magazine, that it happened after they ran into each other at the store and Trump recognized her from her column.

After asking her to help him pick out a gift for a woman, Carroll said he took her to the lingerie department and asked her to try on an item he chose. 

Then, Carroll said Trump shoved her against a wall, unzipped his pants and forcibly penetrated her in an attack she claims lasted three minutes.

Trump said Carroll was 'totally lying' to sell a memoir and that he'd never met her, though a 1987 photo showed them and their then-spouses at a social event. He said it just captured a moment when he was standing in a line. 

'She is trying to sell a new book - that should indicate her motivation,' he said in one of various statements on the matter, adding that the book 'should be sold in the fiction section'.

Carroll detailed her allegations against Trump in New York magazine, appearing on the cover in the very same coat dress that she claims she was wearing on the day Trump allegedly assaulted her 

Carroll said that she remained silent during the 2016 presidential campaign in part because her mother, a respected Republican official in Indiana, was dying at the time and she didn't want to add to her pain.

She said the emergence of the #MeToo movement in late 2017 prompted her to go public with her own story as she advised other women in her advice column to be brave and to seek justice when they asked her how to respond to sexual assault and abuse.

Carroll's suit seeks damages and a retraction of Trump's statements, saying they hurt her career and reputation.

Trump's legal team has repeatedly tried - and failed - to have the suit dismissed. Attorney General Bill Barr intervened in the case last month by having the DOJ seek the substitution.  

Carroll's lawyers said the DOJ move was part of a pattern of maneuvers designed to delay progression of the case, including Carroll's effort to get a DNA sample from Trump to see if it matches male genetic material on a dress she says she wore the day of the alleged attack. 

A lab report taken on the black wool coat-styled dress found DNA on the sleeves mixed with at least four people, including one man.

Carroll's lawyers accused the DOJ of attempting to delay progression of the case, including Carroll's effort to get a DNA sample from Trump to see if it matches male genetic material on a dress she says she wore the day of the alleged attack