Donald Trump cannot countersue the US writer E Jean Carroll, who says he raped her in the mid-1990s, a federal judge ruled on Friday. The former president had argued that her defamation lawsuit against him violated a New York state law intended to protect free speech. US district judge Lewis Kaplan in Manhattan said a ruling for the one-term Republican would needlessly cause further delays for Carroll’s lawsuit, which began in November 2019. He also accused Trump of engaging in “bad faith” to prevent Carroll, 78, from pursuing a case that could have been decided long ago. “The defendant’s litigation tactics, whatever their intent, have delayed the case to an extent that readily could have been far less,” Kaplan wrote. Letting Trump countersue “would make a regrettable situation worse”, he added. A lawyer for Trump did not immediately respond to a request for comment. Lawyers for Trump had previously appeared before a federal appeals court to argue that the US government should take his place as the defendant in the defamation case. They said late last year that he was not trying to dodge personal liability in the lawsuit by Carroll but just wanted to keep future presidents from being burdened by legal claims. “This is not political. This is not about being a Democrat or a Republican. It is solely to protect the presidency as an institution,” attorney Alina Habba said at the time. Carroll accuses Trump of raping her in the dressing room of the upscale Manhattan department store Bergdorf Goodman. Since speaking out and suing Trump, she told the Guardian in the summer of 2019, she had begun to keep a loaded gun next to her at night. “I’ve always had a gun. When I’m doing Skype calls with my friends, I like to pull it out. But I’ve never had it loaded. Not until now,” she said.