OAN Staff Brooke Mallory
12:51 PM – Thursday, July 25, 2024
On Wednesday, a federal judge in Florida rejected a motion from ABC News and George Stephanopoulos to dismiss former President Donald Trump’s defamation lawsuit against them.
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In March of last year, the former president filed a lawsuit against the network and one of its prominent anchors, highlighting that in an interview with Republican Representative Nancy Mace (R-S.C.), George Stephanopoulos falsely claimed that Trump had been found guilty of raping writer E. Jean Carroll.
According to the original lawsuit filed by Trump’s team, Stephanopoulos made his remarks “with actual malice or with a reckless disregard for the truth.”
In a post to his Truth Social account on Wednesday afternoon, Trump hailed the ruling, which was signed by Chief U.S. District Judge Cecilia Altonaga for the Southern District of Florida. He called it a “BIG WIN” over “ABC FAKE NEWS” and “LIDDLE’ GEORGE SLOPADOPOLUS.”
“A POWERFUL CASE!” Trump said. “BEFORE YOU KNOW IT, THE FAKE NEWS MEDIA WILL BE FORCED BY THE COURTS TO START TELLING THE TRUTH. THIS IS A GREAT DAY FOR OUR COUNTRY. MAGA2024!”
Last year, in May, Trump was found guilty for the alleged sexual assault and slander of Carroll. However, he was found not guilty of rape.
Carroll claimed that in the 1990s, Trump had allegedly raped her in a department store in New York City. However, Carroll has changed her story a number of times, specifically the supposed year that she claimed the incident occurred. Additionally, there was no video evidence that backed her claims, so it was essentially just her word against his.
Nevertheless, the court still granted Carroll $5 million in damages, even though the New York federal jury also found that Trump was “not liable for rape.”
However, Lewis Kaplan, the presiding judge, said in August 2023 that that there was “minimal” legal distinction between rape and sexual assault.
In addition, Carroll prevailed in a second defamation lawsuit against Trump in January, receiving $83.3 million in damages.
In a move to dismiss Trump’s defamation lawsuit, ABC News and Stephanopoulos cited Kaplan’s prior statements. The request was filed in May. Nevertheless, Altonaga denied the defendants’ request, stating in part that Carroll’s comments and Stephanopoulos’s statements were much different.
“Where Carroll reiterated and relayed her own experience, Stephanopoulos represented that he was describing the jury’s verdict,” Altonaga’s order said.
In clarifying that she was not making a decision based on the merits of Trump’s claims, Altonaga said that the defendants “may very well convince a reasonable factfinder to follow Judge Kaplan’s reasoning or to adopt other reasoning leading to the conclusion that Stephanopoulos’s statements were not defamatory.”
“That is not the issue before the Court now,” the judge wrote. “At this stage, the Court only decides that Defendants have not satisfied their burden to show collateral estoppel should apply, and that collateral estoppel would not be fairly applied in these circumstances.”
The directive issued on Wednesday comes only a few weeks before Trump and Vice President Kamala Harris, the presumed Democrat contender, are set to square off in a presidential debate on ABC News ever since President Joe Biden has stepped down as the nominee.
Even though the Democrat Party prides itself as the “pro-choice” and “pro-democracy” party in its political advertisements, ironically, there still hasn’t been a formal vote where Democrats have selected their preferred candidate to be the 2024 nominee. As Biden stepped aside, even after weeks of falsely claiming that he would stay the 2024 nominee, Kamala and her team quickly jumped in and earned support while acquiring the necessary number of delegates to become the nominee.
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