Trump's lawyer: Comments about sexual harassment accusers shouldn't be taken literally
July 8 at 12:03 PM
Being President Trump's lawyer means telling the courts that your client's comments shouldn't be taken literally — a lot. And it just happened again, this time when it comes to the women who accused Trump of unwanted sexual advances.
The Post's Rosalind S. Helderman writes about a particularly remarkable strategy from Trump's personal lawyer, Marc Kasowitz. It comes in a lawsuit brought by former “Apprentice” contestant Summer Zervos, who is accusing Trump of defamation for saying she lied about their. Kasowitz is asking that the suit be dismissed (emphasis added):
Kasowitz also argued that Zervos’s complaint should be dismissed because her original allegations against Trump were not true and, in addition, because Trump’s campaign-trail statements were protected by the First Amendment. A certain level of hyperbole is to be expected in the heat of a political campaign, he wrote, and such statements are legally protected speech.
During the campaign, Trump said the women who accused against him of inappropriately touching them were putting forward “made-up stories and lies” and “telling totally false stories.” Kasowitz argued those statements and others could not be considered defamatory but instead were “nothing more than heated campaign rhetoric designed to persuade the public audience that Mr. Trump should be elected president irrespective of what the media and his opponents had claimed over his 18-month campaign.”
https://www.washingtonpost.com/news/the-fix/wp/2017/07/08/trumps-lawyer-comments-about-sexual-harassment-accusers-nothing-more-than-heated-campaign-rhetoric/?utm_term=.32ec070e2cff
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