Update: Trump avoided sitting down for a deposition after Summer Zervos dropped her lawsuit.
A lawsuit filed launched by former “Apprentice” contestant Summer Zervos seeks a retraction or apology, plus compensatory and punitive damages from former President Donald Trump, who no longer has the power of the presidency to protect him. And Zervos will never get an apology from Trump. His narcissistic mind won’t allow him to do that. Bloomberg reports that Trump claims he was just engaging in “fiery rhetoric” when he said that Zervos was lying about being sexually assaulted by him more than a decade ago.
“Trump said the defamation lawsuit filed against him by Summer Zervos was doomed to fail because he was simply using hyperbole to deny her allegation,” the outlet reports. “He made the argument in a filing on Wednesday in New York state court in Manhattan, where he’s seeking a judge’s approval to amend his response to her 2017 suit and file a counterclaim.”
According to Reuters, the twice-impeached one-term president asked for the court’s permission to countersue Zervos for wrongly interfering with his right to speak freely.
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“Zervos said in a filing last week that Trump was trying to delay a court-ordered deposition, which must take place by Dec. 23, but the former president denied he was engaging in stall tactics,” Bloomberg reports.
“This argument is patently absurd, disingenuous, and entirely unfounded,” his lawyer, Alina Habba, said in the filing.
According to the outlet, Trump managed to stall the suit for years by arguing that a sitting president can’t be sued in state court.
“New York judges rejected that defense, but Trump’s appeals kept the case from moving forward until he left the White House,” the report adds. “He is counterclaiming that Zervos’s suit was filed in bad faith with the intent to chill public discourse in violation of New York law. According to Trump, she intentionally “solicited” the allegedly defamatory statements by accusing him of assault and waiting for him to deny it.”
Trump is facing numerous legal challenges, from tax evasion to election tampering. Oh, and there’s that deadly Jan. 6 insurrection that he incited. Seven US Capitol police officers are suing the former president. Law and order!
Featured image via Political Tribune gallery
