(PatriotWise.com) — Donald Trump filed a lawsuit in a Miami federal court on Monday against ABC News and “This Week” host George Stephanopoulos, alleging that the host defamed him during a recent interview on the ABC Sunday show, CNN reported.
In the March 10 broadcast of “This Week,” Stephanopoulos grilled South Carolina Republican Rep. Nancy Mace over her support for Donald Trump, demanding to know why, as a rape survivor, Mace could endorse a candidate whom a New York jury found liable for sexual abuse in the civil suit brought by writer E. Jean Carroll.
Mace defended Trump, noting that the former president was not convicted in criminal court. She also blasted Stephanopoulos for attempting to shame her “as a rape victim” over her “political choices.”
In reality, Stephanopoulos’ question was based on a misleading premise.
The jury in E. Jean Carroll’s first trial against Trump found him liable for sexual abuse and determined that Carroll failed to prove her case that the former president raped her.
However, when the judge in the case dismissed Trump’s countersuit several months later, he concluded that Carroll’s claim of rape was substantially true.
Judge Lewis Kaplan concluded that the jury’s verdict established that Trump raped her “digitally rather than with his penis,” and therefore it established the “substantial truth” of Carroll’s accusation of rape.
In his lawsuit filed in the Southern District of Florida, Trump accused Stephanopoulos of making “false, intentional, malicious” statements against him that were “designed to cause harm.”
ABC News and Stephanopoulos refused to comment on the lawsuit.
Donald Trump has a history of filing lawsuits against media outlets.
In January, the former president was ordered to pay nearly $400,000 in legal fees to the New York Times after a judge dismissed Trump’s lawsuit against the paper over its 2018 investigation into then-President Trump’s finances that included tax information provided by his niece Mary Trump.
The New York Times report won a Pulitzer Prize in 2019.
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