AOC sets herself up so that Donald Trump can sue her for defamation
By Andrea Widburg
I’ve never thought Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez (“AOC”) is as stupid as the memes make her out to be. After all, despite bringing very little in the way of actual accomplishments to the table, she is (as of now) a four-term congresswoman who is well-positioned to become a senator from New York, has a hugely positive reputation, and is even considered a viable presidential candidate. It takes intelligence to achieve those heights.
However, feral intelligence is very different from either knowledge or wisdom. AOC’s decision-making and values show that she has severe knowledge and wisdom deficits, something she revealed yesterday when she used her personal X account to call Trump a “rapist,” setting herself up for a very costly defamation action. We know this is true because of the $15 million ABC agreed to pay Trump based on George Stephanopoulos’s calling Trump a “rapist.”
In 2019, E. Jean Carroll, a magazine writer, claimed that, sometime in 1995 or 1996 (she really didn’t know when), Donald Trump sexually assaulted her in a dressing room in Bloomingdale’s. It was purely a coincidence that her reporting on a horrible event 26 or 27 years ago seemed to parallel a plot line in an episode of Law and Order: Special Victims Unit. The passage of time also explained why Carroll was certain that, during this searing experience, she was wearing an outfitthat hadn’t been designed yet.
Donald Trump denied Carroll’s claim, so she sued him for defamation. (That is, she contended that he had defamed her by calling her a liar.) In addition, because the New York legislature passed a law creating a new civil statute of limitations that was essentially just for Carroll, she filed a second civil suit against him for both defamation and battery.
In May 2023, a jury in the second case found Trump liable for defamation and “sexual abuse,” specifically rejecting the rape charge. Trump eventually lost both cases and was ordered to pay a combined total of $83.3 million in damages. He has appealed both decisions.
What’s important to know is that, not only did the jurors in the second case reject a “rape” finding against Trump, but it’s doubtful whether that finding would have made Trump a “rapist.” That’s because a rape charge is a criminal offense, and this was a civil trial.
The distinction is important because the prosecution in a criminal case is hedged about with a very high due process standard that doesn’t exist in civil cases. One of those protections is that the government must prove the charges “beyond a reasonable doubt.” In a civil case, the plaintiff only has to meet a “more likely than not” burden of proof. In other words, a civil finding could not have been a true “criminal rape” finding. And of course, even under this lighter standard, the jury rejected the allegation that Trump committed “rape.”
ABC’s George Stephanopoulos didn’t understand these nuances. Instead, he repeatedly claimed on prime-time television that Trump had been “found liable for rape.” Because that was a heinous accusation and Stephanopoulos clearly meant to hurt Trump by saying it, neither Stephanopoulos nor ABC was protected by New York Times v. Sullivan. That Supreme Court decision limited defamation suits if the outlet made the allegedly defamatory statements without malice but, instead, intended to report to the public. Therefore, Trump sued Stephanopoulos and ABC.
Last December, ABC settled with Trump, agreeing to pay him $15 million, to be used for Trump’s presidential library, plus $1 million in legal fees. Some speculate that this settlement was intended to avoid discovery, which might have been unpleasant for ABC.
The ABC settlement was not a little story. This was a big story. If AOC were wise, she would have paid attention and learned from it. However, as I said, AOC is not wise, which she highlighted when she published this tweet yesterday:
The tweet is still live.
It’s possible that AOC believes that, because she’s a congresswoman, she’s protected from defamation suits. However, Art. I, Section 5, Clause 1 of the U.S. Constitution limits protection only to statements on the House floor during House business:
[Senators and Representatives] shall in all Cases, except Treason, Felony and Breach of the Peace, be privileged from Arrest during their Attendance at the Session of their respective Houses, and in going to and returning from the same; and for any Speech or Debate in either House, they shall not be questioned in any other Place. [Emphasis mine.]
AOC seems to have committed what used to be called “ libel per se,” or a false accusation that is inherently damaging to a person’s reputation (e.g., calling an innocent party a “rapist”). If a plaintiff can prove that the defendant knowingly made a false statement, the plaintiff wins. He doesn’t have to prove his damages, for they are presumed.
I’m not the only one who believes Trump should sue AOC for a false statement that’s currently been seen over 17 million times:
I hope that Donald Trump does not show forbearance here. Democrats have gone for decades without experiencing consequences for wrongful actions, whether criminal or civil, and it’s emboldened them to their current state of madness. They need to be reined in, and AOC’s defamatory statement is a good start. |
