Former President Donald Trump filed a defamation lawsuit against ABC News and "This Week" anchor George Stephanopoulos after his March 10 interview with Rep. Nancy Mace, R-S.C., questioning her endorsement of Trump's presidential campaign considering her history as a survivor of rape.
Trump's lawsuit, filed Monday in federal court in Miami, calls out Stephanopoulos for several points during the interview, when he asked Mace why she would endorse Trump after he'd been found "liable for rape," in the jury verdicts in advice columnist E. Jean Carroll's against him on claims of sexual battery and defamation, reported The Hill.
"Judges and two separate juries have found him liable for rape and for defaming the victim of that rape," Stephanopoulos asked Mace at one point during the interview. "How do you square your endorsement of Donald Trump with the testimony we just saw?"
The jury in Carroll's case found Trump liable for sexual abuse but not rape under New York laws.
"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," Trump's attorney, Alejandro Brito, argued in the 20-page against ABC News and its star anchor.
"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," the lawsuit adds.
Trump asked for an unspecified amount of damages in the lawsuit. ABC News has declined to comment.
Last week, Mace told Newsmax that Stephanopoulos, who joined the network in 1997 after serving under President Bill Clinton as a senior policy and strategy adviser, exposed himself and ABC News to a massive lawsuit and said she hoped Trump sued them.
"He was not convicted of rape and the civil judgment was not about rape, either, and I made that point," Mace said on "Rob Schmitt Tonight."
During the March 10 interview, Mace accused Stephanopoulos of attempting to shame and bully her about her endorsement of Trump by bringing up her history as a rape victim.
"I was raped at the age of 16, and any rape victim will tell you, I've lived for 30 years with an incredible amount of shame over being raped," she said. "I'm not going to sit here, on your show, and be asked a question meant to shame me about another potential rape victim. I'm not going to do that."
Sandy Fitzgerald ✉
Sandy Fitzgerald has more than three decades in journalism and serves as a general assignment writer for Newsmax covering news, media, and politics.
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