Why Did ABC Roll Over and Beg Trump for Mercy?
Kurt Schlichter
Donald Trump’s total humiliation of ABC News over its most recent slander, delivered through the flapping gums of malignant dwarf George Stephanopoulos, was one of those delicious examples of how the New Rules keep coming around to bite the left on its collective fourth point of contact. Even a decade ago, this would not have happened. Defamation cases, particularly against public figures, were almost impossible to win and were less about money than about enraged plaintiffs tormenting those who talked bad about them. But that’s all changed. There’s big money at stake now. The left decided it was going to use legal civil lawfare, as well as criminal lawfare, to take out in court the opponents it couldn’t take out in the public square. This initiative worked for a little while. Now, they’ve got a problem. We’re doing it to them. And it’s only going to get worse for them.
Let’s talk about defamation. Without getting too far into the weeds, the elements of a defamation claim are generally that a person makes a false and derogatory statement that causes the victim damage. I do have one pet peeve, which is kind of fussy and lawyerly. People often say that truth is a defense to a defamation claim. That’s not always true. At least in California, falsity is an element of the claim. If falsity is an element, the plaintiff must prove it. A defense is something a defendant must prove. If it’s a defense, the defendant must prove the statement is false. Whether it’s an element or an affirmative defense varies between jurisdictions, and it’s probably not important to this column, but it’s important to me as a lawyer.
What happened in this case was that Stephanopoulos decided to insist, on his largely unwatched Sunday morning show, that Donald Trump had been found liable for rape. Obviously, being called a rapist is derogatory, unless you’re a prominent Democrat donor. What Clinton’s brunette Oompa-Loompa was referring to was that weird woman in New York who accused Trump of molesting her in a department store dressing room 30 years ago. This ridiculous case, made possible by a bunch of obnoxious legal maneuvers, was cooked up largely by the left as a way to trash Trump. In any sane society, a three-decade-old she-said allegation without a single shred of any kind of supporting physical or other evidence would’ve been laughed out of court. But things don’t get laughed out of court anymore in a venue where 90% of the jurors are your political opponents and where the judge not only drops the ball but fires it into the center of the Earth with a cannon.
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https://townhall.com/columnists/kurtschlichter/2024/12/19/why-did-abc-roll-over-and-beg-trump-for-mercy-n2649222
