Former President Donald Trump sued ABC News and anchor George Stephanopoulos on Monday, arguing that the news host defamed him on-air multiple times.
Trump filed the lawsuit in a federal court in Miami, alleging that Stephanopoulos harmed his reputation after the ABC News host said during an interview with Rep. Nancy Mace (R-SC) last week that Trump was found liable for raping writer E. Jean Carroll, The New York Times reported. Last year, a jury in a Manhattan civil case found the former president liable for sexually abusing Carroll, not for rape.
“Judges and two separate juries have found him liable for rape and for defaming the victim of that rape. How do you square your endorsement of Donald Trump with the testimony we just saw?” Stephanopoulos asked Mace during the interview.
In a 20-page complaint, Trump’s attorney Alejandro Brito wrote, “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.”
“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,” Brito added, according to The Hill.
Trump has asked for an unspecified amount of damages in the lawsuit.
Mace blasted Stephanopoulos during the interview after he grilled her on her support of the former president, referencing that the congresswoman had been a rape victim herself. She insisted the question was “offensive” and “disgusting.” Mace added, “You’re questioning my political choices because I’ve been raped.”
The jury in the civil case found Trump liable for sexually abusing Carroll and defaming her after the writer claimed Trump followed her into a dressing room at the Bergdorf Goodman department store and forcibly digitally penetrated her in the mid-1990s.
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Trump has also attempted to countersue Carroll for continuing to accuse him of rape during appearances on cable news after the jury’s verdict. U.S. District Judge Lewis Kaplan, however, rejected Trump’s counterclaims, saying that “The difference between Ms. Carroll’s allegedly defamatory statements — that Mr. Trump ‘raped’ her as defined in the New York Penal Law — and the ‘truth’ — that Mr. Trump forcibly digitally penetrated Ms. Carroll — is minimal.”
“Both are felonious sex crimes,” Kaplan added.
The jury later awarded Carroll $83.3 million in damages, finding that Trump owed Carroll $11 million to cover the costs of a campaign to repair the harm done to her reputation and $7.3 million to address the emotional harm the 80-year-old writer sustained from remarks Trump made in 2019 about her and her accusations of rape. The jury ordered Trump to pay another $65 million in punitive damages.
“Absolutely ridiculous!” Trump said in a statement following the jury’s verdict. “I fully disagree with both verdicts, and will be appealing this whole Biden Directed Witch Hunt focused on me and the Republican Party. Our Legal System is out of control, and being used as a political weapon. They have taken away all First Amendment Rights. THIS IS NOT AMERICA!”
Tim Pearce contributed to this report.