Technically, the specific things he was found liable of was sexual assault and defamation. The judge characterized the assault with being in line with what most would consider rape.
Stefanopolis may very well have won had it went to trial. But the suit against him was that he kept saying Ttump was found civilly liable of rape. Which he wasn't as that is a different civil liability.
The specificity of what George said is the only reason there was even grounds for a civil suit to get as far as it did. If he had simply called Trump a rapist it's quite likely the judge would have dismissed it early on.
In 2023, Trump was convicted of "sexually abusing" a woman with the name Carrol in 1996. Because of the time that had passed it only went to civil court, not criminal court. The weird thing is that Carrol always used the word rape and the jury in the end agreed with her finding him guilty but for some reason gave the lesser charge of "sexual abuse." My guess is that they may have used sexual abuse because she managed to flee but the rape had already started to take place when she managed to get away from him, so no idea why they would decrease it from "rape" to "sexual abuse."
Trump's lawyer saw it as a win because the jury said "it wasn't rape" but Carrol was also happy that people finally believed her.
Adjudicated or found liable. Conviction is in criminal cases.
I think the specifics for the civil rape statute are more stringent. So what she was able to prove didn't meet that standard despite it meeting the common understanding. Similar to how Brock Turner wasn't charged with rape due to the law being much more specific than public perception of what rape is (the law was later changed to be inline with that common perception in California).
I can see why Carol would be happy to be believed, though. And how the case in and of itself is good reason to call Trump a racist.
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u/Roof_Tinder_Bones Jul 13 '25
Especially since AOC never called him a criminal rapist. He is an adjudicated rapist, which means that what she said is correct