(PatriotPostNews.com) – ABC News has requested that a defamation lawsuit filed by former president Donald Trump against show host George Stephanopoulos be dropped.
The controversial Republican filed the suit in March 2024 after the show host insisted on air that Trump had been found “liable for rape” in the infamous E. Jean Carroll case. The comments were made during an episode of the ABC show “This Week,” featuring GOP Rep. Nancy Mace of South Carolina, who defended the former president.
A federal jury in Manhattan did find Trump guilty of abusing Carroll, but he was not charged with rape, and the case was a civil rather than a criminal trial. The politician sued the network and its host for defamation, arguing that they were intentionally sharing false information to turn the audience against him.
Attorneys for the defendants have requested a dismissal of the case “with prejudice” to ensure the claims are not filed in the future. They have declared that Stephanopoulos’ comments were “substantially true,” citing an article from The Washington Post that the host had referenced during the viral segment.
The lawsuit accuses the host of knowing that his claims were “false” but sharing them on air anyway, as well as behaving in an “intentional” and “malicious” manner, seeking “to cause harm.”
In a Friday, May 10, court filing, ABC attorneys Rachel Fugate and Nathan Siegel stated that Trump’s defamation case is merely an effort to “re-litigate a meritless theory” that he had been defamed, citing similar failed attempts in New York. The case against ABC and Stephanopoulos was filed in the Southern District of Florida and points to a verdict sheet from the jury in the Carroll case.
However, Judge Lewis Kaplan did specify in his decision that Trump was found responsible for taking advantage of Carroll under popular opinion and definition, even if his actions did not constitute such a violation as defined in the New York Penal Law.
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