The U.S. Department of Justice on Friday declined to inform the court whether it intends to substitute itself for former President Donald Trump in the defamation action filed against him by E. Jean Carroll in 2019.

U.S. District Judge Lewis Kaplan of the Southern District of New York set a Friday deadline for the DOJ to determine whether the then-president was acting within the scope of his employment when he said Carroll was not his “type” after she publicly accused him of rape.