Donald Trump has filed a defamation lawsuit against ABC News and George Stephanopoulos on Monday, over the anchor’s viral interview with Rep. Nancy Mace (R-S.C.) about her endorsement of Trump.
Stephanopoulos and Mace got into a heated back and forth earlier this month on ABC’s This Week after the host pointed to verdicts in writer E. Jean Carroll’s case, noting that juries found the former president liable for sexual abuse and pressed Mace on how she could support Trump when she is a survivor of rape.
Judge Lewis Kaplan later clarified that Trump raped Carroll in a ruling denying the former president’s request for a new trial.
“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,’” Kaplan wrote. “Indeed, as the evidence at trial recounted below makes clear, the jury found that Mr. Trump in fact did exactly that.”
Still, Trump’s team argued that the former resident was never found liable for rape.
“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. Indeed, the jury expressly found that Plaintiff did not commit rape and, as demonstrated below, Defendant George Stephanopoulos was aware of the jury’s finding in this regard yet still falsely stated otherwise,” Trump’s lawyer Alejandro Brito, wrote.
The lawsuit is the latest in a long line of failed attempts by Trump and his campaign to sue media outlets including CNN, Washington Post and the New York Times.
