A federal judge ruled this past week, refusing to dismiss former President Donald Trump’s lawsuit filed against ABC News and anchor George Stephanopolous over his claims that the former president had “r*ped” E. Jean Carroll. The ruling is a significant victory for Trump and his continual battle with the mainstream media and its coverage of him.
Trump previously filed the lawsuit in a Florida federal court earlier this year, accusing ABC and Stephanopolous of defaming him during a tense on-air conversation with Rep. Nancy Mace (R-SC), where the ABC anchor suggested that a jury had determined that Trump had “r*ped Carroll. However, a Manhattan federal jury only found that Trump was liable for sexual abuse against Carroll.
According to reports, US Judge Lewis Kaplan dismissed Trump’s counter-suit against Carroll, ruling that Trump had r*ped Carrol in the broader sense of the word, claiming the use of the word was “substantially true.” However, US District Judge Cecilia Altonaga, an appointee of former President George W. Bush, recently allowed the case to proceed, noting the definitions were different enough.
Altonaga said, “New York has opted to separate out a crime of rape. Stephanopoulos’s statements dealt not with the public’s usage of that term, but the jury’s consideration of it during a formal legal proceeding.” The judge added that this case address “whether it is substantially true to say a jury (or juries) found (Trump) liable for rape by a jury despite the jury’s verdict expressly finding he was not liable for rape.”
She continued, “Judge Kaplan was reviewing a jury’s damages award. His analysis necessarily focused on what Carroll had and had not proved at trial, as well as the harm Carroll experienced from (Trump’s) abuse. There was no discussion of how to accurately report on the jury’s findings.”
“Stephanopoulos’s exchange with Mace lasted about ten minutes, during which Stephanopoulos stated ten times that a jury — or juries — had found Plaintiff liable for rape,” according to Altonaga’s ruling. “In fact, of course, the Carroll II jury did not find (Trump) liable for rape under New York Penal Law; it was Judge Kaplan who determined that the jury’s verdict amounted to liability for rape.”
The American Tribune previously reported this year on the news that Trump would be suing ABC and Stephanopoulos over the accusation of defamation. “Judges and two separate juries have found him liable for r*pe and for defaming the victim of that r*pe. How do you square your endorsement of Donald Trump with the testimony we just saw?” Stephanopoulos said during the interview.
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“These statements were and remain false, and were made by Defendant Stephanopoulos with actual malice or with a reckless disregard for the truth given that Defendant Stephanopoulos knows that these statements are patently and demonstrably false,” Trump’s attorneys said about the comments from Stephanopolous.
Watch a clip from the heated interview below: