By ranting on Truth Social, it sure seems like the former president undermined one of his main defenses in a defamation case over an alleged sexual assault, legal experts say.

Former President Donald Trump’s recent online tirade against E. Jean Carroll might have been a really bad idea.

That’s because the move appears to have blown a new hole in Trump’s best defense against the magazine columnist’s lawsuit, in which Carroll accuses Trump of defamation by denying her accusation that he raped her in a New York department store over two decades ago.

Trump’s lawyers have argued for months that he can’t be held personally responsible in the suit because his denial took place during his presidency, and therefore fell under his official duties as president. But by repeating his denial last week in an online tirade posted on his social media site, Truth Social, and blasted out in an emailed statement, Trump essentially re-upped the activity at the heart of the lawsuit—at a moment when he’s not the president anymore. ...