A U.S. district judge allowed the Trump lawsuit to move closer to trial.
A federal judge denied George Stephanopoulos’s and ABC News’s motion to dismiss former President Donald Trump’s defamation lawsuit against him and the media company.
The decision on July 24 by U.S. District Judge Cecilia Altonaga allows the former president to proceed with a lawsuit against ABC News and its anchor Mr. Stephanopoulos following a March on-air interview in which Mr. Stephanopoulos said multiple times that the former president was found “liable for rape” in a suit that was brought by writer E. Jean Carroll. A New York jury found he was liable for sexual abuse—not rape—which the former president has vehemently denied.
“Defendants have not met their burden of proving the fair report privilege applies,” Judge Altonaga wrote in the ruling. “Any remaining questions as to the reasonableness of Stephanopoulos’s statements are not for resolution on a motion to dismiss.”
At issue is a March 10 ABC News broadcast of “This Week” in which Mr. Stephanopoulos interviewed Rep. Nancy Mace (R-S.C.) and asked her questions about the former president and said he was found “liable for rape.” The former president said that the host’s statement was defamatory because the jury did not make that finding.
The federal lawsuit, filed in Miami by former President Trump, is seeking an unspecified amount of damages.
Judge Lewis A. Kaplan in the Southern District of New York had found that the jury’s finding in the case was the equivalent of rape. Both ABC and Mr. Stephanopoulos, a White House press secretary in the Clinton administration, cited the New York judge’s ruling in trying to have the former president’s lawsuit dismissed.
Lawyers for ABC and Mr. Stephanopoulos further asserted that statements in the interview were substantially true and protected under the fair report privilege, a legal doctrine that shields journalists from libel lawsuits when they report on fair and accurate accounts of official proceedings or documents.
By Jack Phillips
