Versus Trump: #MeToo vs. Trump
On this week’s episode of Versus Trump, Charlie, Jason, and Easha talk about a defamation lawsuit brought by Summer Zervos, a woman who alleges that she was sexually assaulted by President Trump in a hotel room in 2007.
Charlie, Easha, and Jason begin by discussing the facts in the lawsuit and then [at 5:00] quickly move to the first reason that President Trump has asked the court in New York to dismiss the case: the sitting President cannot be sued in state court. That leads to some deep cuts about the relationship between federal and state power [at 13:00] and then a wonky discussion [at 26:30] of how California's so-called Anti-SLAPP statute works and why Zervos may have been trying to avoid it. They then turn [at 32:30] to the President's second argument, which is that the statements calling Zervos a liar were protected by the First Amendment because they were made in the context of a political campaign.
No Trump Nuggets this week, but stay tuned for the big end-of-year recap, coming soon!
As usual, you can listen online below, and subscribe here with any podcast player or here in iTunes.
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Links
- The Complaint in the case is here.
- The President's motion to mismiss is here; Zervos's opposition is here; and the President's reply is here.
- Interesting commentary on the case by Steve Vladeck is here.
- Michael Dorf's post speculating on why the case was filed in state court is here.
- The hearing on the motion to dismiss was held on December 5th, and the court has not yet issued a decision. A LiveBlog from the argument is here.
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Rule of Law Judiciary Executive Branch Democracy Free Speech & Press Women’s Rights Versus Trump Podcast