
Left: Donald Trump (AP Photo/Mike Stewart, File). Right: ABC’s George Stephanopoulos on “This Week,” March 10, 2024 (ABC News/screengrab).
The chief judge for the U.S. District Court for the Southern District of Florida who previously made headlines for reportedly urging Judge Aileen Cannon to step aside from Donald Trump’s since dismissed Mar-a-Lago case ruled Wednesday that the former president’s defamation lawsuit against ABC, a case brought because George Stephanopoulos said “more than 10 times” on “This Week” that Trump been found “liable for rape” in the E. Jean Carroll civil case, can move forward.
In May, lawyers for ABC and Stephanopoulos asked Chief Judge Cecilia Altonaga to throw out the lawsuit “with prejudice,” defending Stephanopoulos’ statements as “substantially true,” asserting they were protected by Florida’s fair report privilege, and arguing that Trump’s claims were collaterally estopped.
“In this case, former President Trump seeks to re-litigate a meritless theory of defamation that he has already lost twice in New York. Mr. Trump is collaterally estopped from doing so here,” ABC argued earlier. “And if this Court were to reach the merits, at bottom, this case asserts that even after a jury has found that a person committed a violent sexual assault, it is defamatory to say that the person committed a ‘rape.’ That is not a proposition Florida law recognizes.”