On Wednesday, a federal judge in Florida rejected the request from ABC News and George Stephanopoulos to throw out former President Donald Trump’s defamation lawsuit.
In March of last year, the former president filed a lawsuit against the station and one of its senior anchors, alleging that in an interview with Republican Representative Nancy Mace, George Stephanopoulos repeatedly asserted that Trump had been found guilty of E. Jean Carroll’s rape. According to the original lawsuit filed by the former president’s group, Stephanopoulos made his remarks “with genuine intention or with a careless disregard for the reality.”
In an update to his Truth Social profile on Wednesday afternoon, Trump celebrated the ruling, which was executed 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.”
In May 2023, Trump was held accountable for the sexual harassment and disinformation of Carroll. The former magazine editor stated that in the 1990s, Trump had sexually assaulted her in a department shop in New York City. She was granted $5 million in compensation.
Carroll was not found to have been raped by Trump by the jury in this case. Lewis Kaplan, the presiding judge, did clarify in August 2023 that Carroll’s allegations that Trump had sexually assaulted her were “significantly true” and that there was “minimal” legal difference between sexual assault and rape. In January, Carroll also prevailed in a second defamatory lawsuit against Trump, receiving a $83.3 million damages sentence.
In a move to dismiss Trump’s defamation lawsuit, ABC News and Stephanopoulos cited Kaplan’s prior decisions. The request was brought in May. Nevertheless, Altonaga denied the defendants’ demand, stating in part that Carroll’s comments and Stephanopoulos’s statements were clearly different.
Altonaga’s order stated that “Stephanopoulos claimed that he was conveying the jury’s verdict whereas Carroll repeated and recounted her own perspective.”