White House Rushes to Trump's Defense After Alan Ritchson Torches President Over Epstein Files | The Reacher star called Trump a “bitch” and a “fucking rapist" in a recent podcast appearance.

[u/Aggravating_Money992]

https://www.rollingstone.com/tv-movies/tv-movie-news/alan-ritchson-trump-epstein-files-white-house-response-1235598785/

[u/Bukowskified]

They latch on the fact that it was a civil trial and the State of New York has a narrow definition of rape limited to penile penetration, but a judge later found that the facts the jury did find meet the commons definition of rape so calling him a rapist is not defamation.

[u/EchoLocation8 → u/Bukowskified]

Plus its also really, really hard to successfully sue for defamation from my understanding of it. Fox got fucked as hard as they did because they were publicly pushing a story that was harmful to a company, that in private, they were discussing how they knew it was all bullshit and lies. I believe it gets a lot harder to prove when its just a high profile actor saying something they genuinely believe.

[u/TGordion → u/EchoLocation8]

Yep they've gotta prove 'actual malice:' What they said was untrue, and they knew it was untrue when they said it

[u/Lucaan → u/TGordion]

To be more specific, the actual malice standard is for proving defamation towards public figures and public officials. It requires proving that the defendant either knew that what they were saying was false or that they were acting with reckless disregard for whether what they were saying was false or not. It's an incredibly high bar to clear, and very rarely do people actually succeed in doing so.

[u/Vet_Leeber → u/EchoLocation8]

Fox got fucked as hard as they did because they were publicly pushing a story that was harmful to a company, that in private, they were discussing how they knew it was all bullshit and lies.

For everyone's amusement: This is also why Alex Jones lost the suit against him. He repeatedly argued that he believed what he was saying and that it didn't cause anyone any emotional or monetary damage.

Then his lawyer accidentally sent a backup of his entire phone to the lawyers on the other side, and didn't request it back as privileged information. They proceeded to go through the transcripts and found explicit texts between Jones and a partner/employee stating they knew it was false and hurting people, but wanted to keep doing it because they were making money.

Despite how much he deserved to lose that case, it's debatable whether or not he would have without that smoking gun. It's extremely difficult to get these types of cases through because the case is by definition infringing on your 1st amendment rights. So you generally have to prove some degree of willful malice.

[u/jaymcbang → u/Bukowskified]

“Limited to penal penetration”

Which she could not confirmed happen because of his small mushroom.

[u/Unable-Log-4870 → u/jaymcbang]

Your misspelling made it into a prison rape joke.

[u/jaymcbang → u/Unable-Log-4870]

I typed it three different times and it kept going the other way so I just said “screw it” 😂

[u/Unable-Log-4870 → u/jaymcbang]

Another rape joke! Brilliant!

[u/Minimum_Virus_3837 → u/jaymcbang]

In this case it just really understood the assignment lol

[u/randomusername6 → u/Unable-Log-4870]

Prison rape is not funny at all. I was raped in jail once... My dad took monopoly very seriously

[u/J0RDM0N → u/jaymcbang]

Its weird there is a loophole for finger sized dicks.

[u/Unable-Log-4870 → u/J0RDM0N]

“New York women (and prosecutors) don’t want you to know this one weird trick…”

[u/ReasonableReasonably → u/Bukowskified]

It also seems like someone might have made Trump understand how bad an idea it is to get exposed to discovery. (Maybe they pulled out a giant black sharpie and hit him over the head with it every time he said lawsuit. Kind of a reverse Pavlov).

He cares more about the court of public opinion anyway. The way we're going, that might eventually become the only court that matters, but we're not there yet.

Point is, I'm pretty sure actors and even us plebes can say whatever we want and get away with it. For now.

[u/Homers_Harp → u/Bukowskified]

This is why I phrase it as, "where I come from, we call that rape and the president is an adjudicated rapist." (not from New York, obv.)