A federal judge Tuesday blocked the Justice Department's effort to intervene in a defamation case against President Donald Trump brought by E. Jean Carroll who claimed the president disparaged her when he denied her claim that Trump raped her in the mid-1990s.

U.S. District Judge Lewis Kaplan rejected the government's central argument that Trump was acting in his official duties as president last year when he denied magazine writer Carroll's allegation that he had raped her in a Bergdorf Goodman dressing room in New York City.

The Justice Department's intervention was seen as an effort to shield the president from the potentially damaging legal action in the midst of a re-election campaign. The judge's ruling effectively keeps Carroll's claim alive.

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Former CIA Director John Brennan isn’t worried about the Trump administration trying to prosecute him. Nor is he all that concerned about a peaceful transfer of power if President Donald Trump loses the election – particularly if it’s a resounding defeat, as Brennan hopes.

What really has the ex-CIA chief on edge? The social and political havoc Trump may unleash between Election Day and the possible inauguration of his Democratic rival, Joe Biden.

Trump could provoke civil unrest. He could try to declare martial law. He could pardon himself and a rogue’s gallery of his supporters, Brennan said.

He’s so nervous about some of the possibilities – given the president’s powers – that he didn’t even want to say them out loud.

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Here's a running list of people who have tested positive and negative. This is a developing story, not a comprehensive list, which we will keep updated in the days to come:

• President Donald Trump
• First lady Melania Trump
• Hope Hicks, senior advisor to the president
• Bill Stepien, Trump’s campaign manager
• Republican National Committee Chairwoman Ronna McDaniel
• Sen. Mike Lee, R-Utah
• Sen. Thom Tillis, R-North Carolina
• Sen. Ron Johnson, R-Wisconsin
• Chris Christie
• Three White House reporters
• One White House staffer
• Kellyanne Conway, former White House senior advisor
• The Rev. John Jenkins, president of Notre Dame University (Jenkins was at the White House Saturday, when Trump introduced Judge Amy Coney Barrett as his Supreme Court nominee. Barrett was a law professor at Notre Dame for 15 years before Trump nominated her to the U.S. Court of Appeals for the 7th Circuit.)

The group, called Former Republican National Security Officials for Biden, launched in August with 70 members. The new endorsements will bring it to nearly 130 individuals who have publicly broken with the Republican president, including seven who served under Trump, people familiar with the effort said.

Others worked as senior defense and security officials in the administrations of Republican Presidents Ronald Reagan, George H.W. Bush and George W. Bush.

Retired Army General Stanley McChrystal, the former commander of U.S. troops in Afghanistan, also endorsed Biden on Thursday during an interview with MSNBC.

McChrystal, who resigned in 2010 after a Rolling Stone article quoted him making unflattering remarks about Biden and other civilian officials, said he always respected Biden and the incident was “more smoke than fire.”

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