Trump filed a lawsuit against ABC News and George Stephanopoulos for pointing out that he was held legally responsible for the rape of E. Jean Carroll.
Reuters reported:
The new lawsuit claims that the host of ABC’s Sunday news program “This Week With George Stephanopoulos” “falsely claimed on multiple occasions that Plaintiff had been held liable by multiple juries for the rape of Ms. E. Jean Carroll.
The lawsuit, filed Monday in U.S. District Court in South Florida, accuses Stephanopoulos of making statements with malice and disregard for the truth. He said the statements were widely distributed to third parties and repeated.
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The lawsuit cites a March 10 interview with U.S. Rep. Nancy Mace, a Republican who has spoken publicly about being raped as a teenager. Stephanopoulos said Trump was held responsible for rape and asked her how she could support the candidate.
Stephanopoulos said on ABC’s This Week: “Donald Trump was found responsible for rape by a jury. Donald Trump was found liable for defaming the victim of that rape by a jury. A judge said so.”
Technically under New York law, Trump was found responsible for sexual assault, but the judge later clarified in a ruling that Trump digitally raped E. Jean Carroll.
Judge Kaplan wrote: “And since the jury’s response to Question 1 demonstrates that it was not satisfied that there was penile penetration, the only conclusion remaining is that it found that Mr. Trump forcibly penetrated her vagina with fingers – in other words, that he “raped” her in the broadest sense of the New York criminal law definition.
Trump has no basis for this bogus defamation lawsuit that will likely be laughed out of court.
The purpose of the lawsuit appears not to be to win but to scare other media outlets from talking about Trump as a rapist. Donald Trump is trying to create a chilling effect on the media because he does not want voters to know that he was held legally responsible for sexually assaulting E. Jean Carroll.
This lawsuit will fall apart just like all of Donald Trump’s other abuses of the justice system.
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Jason is the managing editor. He is also a member of the White House press pool and a congressional correspondent for PoliticusUSA. Jason has a bachelor’s degree in political science. His graduate work focused on public policy, with a specialization in social reform movements.
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