Former President Donald Trump has filed lawsuits against ABC News and morning show co-host George Stephanopoulos for defamation after the latter claimed several times during a recent interview with Rep. Nancy Mace (R-S.C.) that Trump was “found liable for rape.”
Mace, a survivor of rape, expressed feeling personally targeted when Stephanopoulos, a former top aide to President Bill Clinton, questioned her support for Trump’s presidential campaign. Stephanopoulos asserted during the exchange that Trump had been found “liable for rape” 10 times.
Nevertheless, in a civil trial in 2023, a federal jury in New York found that Trump was not liable for rape but was held liable for sexual abuse and defamation in a case brought by advice columnist E. Jean Carroll against Trump.
Trump has vehemently denied all allegations and referred to the verdict as a “disgrace.”
The lawsuit, filed Monday in Florida, argued that Stephanopoulos’ statements are “false” and were made with “actual malice or with a reckless disregard for the truth given that Defendant Stephanopoulos knows these statements are patently and demonstrably false.” The court filing then noted that a jury “expressly found that Plaintiff did not commit rape.”
The lawsuit points out that representatives of Trump reached out to ABC requesting a retraction subsequent to the interview, yet the Disney-owned news outlet neglected to offer an apology or rectify the record, Fox News reported.
“Since making such false, malicious, and defamatory statements, many news and press outlets have continued to quote Stephanopoulos by wrongfully broadcasting that Plaintiff was found liable for rape,” Trump’s lawyers wrote.
Trump’s legal team is requesting a jury trial.
“Judges and two separate juries have found him liable for rape and for defaming the victim of that rape,” the ABC anchor told Mace during the interview. “How do you square your endorsement of Donald Trump with the testimony we just saw?”
“Well, I will tell you, I was raped at the age of 16,” Mace said. “Any rape victim will tell you, I’ve lived for 30 years with an incredible amount of shame for being raped. I didn’t come forward because of that judgment and shame that I felt. It’s a shame that you will never feel, George.”
Last week, Fox News contributor Andrew McCarthy, a former assistant U.S. attorney for the Southern District of New York, said on the network that Trump was not found guilty of raping Carroll.
“Trump was found civilly liable for sexual abuse. The evidence was that Carroll claimed she was penetrated, though she was unsure — in what she described as a struggle — if it was digitally or by the sex organ,” he said.
“The jury did not find rape proved but was unanimous that Trump sexually abused Carroll. The verdict does not mean the jury found Carroll was not raped; instead the jury found that there was sexual abuse but could not agree that it included rape. To be clear, this was a civil trial; the jury was not asked to find, and did not find, that Trump was guilty beyond a reasonable doubt. He has not been criminally accused, much less convicted, of sexual abuse or rape,” McCarthy told Fox News Digital.
