Donald Trump is suing ABC News for defamation over a George Stephanopoulos interview in which the presenter said the former president was found liable for rape.
The lawsuit states the anchor of "This Week With George Stephanopoulos" “falsely stated on several occasions that Plaintiff had been found liable by multiple juries for the rape of Ms. E. Jean Carroll,” reported Reuters.
Carroll, a New York writer, had accused Trump of raping her decades ago, but a jury in a civil trial in May last year found him liable of sexual abuse and hit him with $5 million in damages for the abuse, and for defaming her by calling her a liar when she complained.
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However the judge, Lewis A. Kaplan, later wrote, “The finding that Ms. Carroll failed to prove that she was ‘raped’ within the meaning of the New York Penal Law does not mean that she failed to prove that Mr. Trump ‘raped’ her as many people commonly understand the word ‘rape.’”
Trump was also hit with $83.3 million in damages in a second defamation trial involving separate defamatory comments denying Carroll's claims.
Stephanopoulos’ comments were made during an interview with Rep. Nancy Mace (R-SC) on March 10. Mace has spoken about being raped as a teenager, and the anchor asked her how she could endorse a candidate who had been found liable for the same crime.
Mace reacted with fury, accusing him of “rape-shaming” her and demanding that Trump sue the anchor for defamation.
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"But when I got there, the first thing he does is confront me about my own rape that happened at the age of 16, 30 years ago," Mace told right-wing podcaster Charlie Kirk after the interview. "And we coined it rape-shaming, right? He rape-shamed me this Sunday on This Week."
She went on, "Donald Trump has not been convicted of rape, not in a criminal court, not in a civil case," she said. "And so that's not what that judgment was about either."
"And I think that he opened himself and ABC News and ABC This Week up to huge liabilities," Mace added. "And if I were Donald Trump, I'd be suing him."
Trump’s lawsuit was filed in Florida on Monday.
ABC News told Reuters it had no comment to make on the filing.
Recommended Links:
- 'This is not a do-over': Trump jurors told sexual abuse is undeniable in Carroll case
- Judge rejects Trump's bid to toss E. Jean Carroll verdict — and says jury understood sexual abuse to mean 'rape'
- The verdict is in for Trump in the E. Jean Carroll case: He sexually abused her
- E. Jean Carroll's lawyer attacks Trump in new court docs over his massive flub
