In the legal battle surrounding former President Donald Trump’s defamation lawsuit against ABC, the network’s legal team is intensifying efforts to dismiss the complaint.
They contend that Trump’s allegation of defamation against host George Stephanopoulos is essentially splitting hairs over semantics.
The latest filing, submitted on Friday, delves into the intricacies of the case, pushing back against Trump’s claims.
The argument centers on whether the issue at hand mirrors the findings of previous trials involving Trump and journalist E. Jean Carroll.
In these trials, Carroll accused Trump of sexual assault, leading to a defamation suit from Trump after he denied the allegations.
The crux of the dispute lies in the interpretation of the jury’s decisions in Carroll’s cases against Trump.
While jurors ruled in Carroll’s favor, determining that Trump had not raped her under New York state law, they did find that he had engaged in “forcible digital penetration.”
This finding, according to Judge Lewis Kaplan, constituted rape in the common understanding of the term, even if it didn’t align precisely with the legal definition.
Trump’s team insists that Stephanopoulos misrepresented the jury’s determinations in his statements, an assertion ABC’s counsel refutes.
They argue that the statements in question are substantially true, given the overlap between the concepts of rape and sexual assault in the context of defamation law.
The legal wrangling underscores the complexity of the case and the nuances involved in interpreting court rulings.
As the dispute unfolds, both sides continue to spar over the interpretation of key legal principles and the implications for Trump’s defamation claims against ABC.
