Outkick's Clay Travis baselessly claims jury found “E. Jean Carroll was lying”

Written by Media Matters Staff

Published

From the January 30, 2024, edition of OutKick's OutKick The Show

CLAY TRAVIS (HOST): This is important, think about this, Trump made these comments in 2019. He hadn't been at that point in time, found liable civilly for sexual assault of E. Jean Carroll. And by the way, the sexual assault charge was found not a rape. So they found that Trump touched her inappropriately, but they found that he did not commit rape is my understanding of the civil suit the first version that went through. So they actually found that E. Jean Carroll was lying by a preponderance of the evidence on part of the claims that she made because they didn't find that Trump raped her, they found that he sexually assaulted her. People say what's the difference? Well rape typically requires again, statutorily its different, but it requires some form of penetration, right? Sexual assault could be, you grab someone inappropriately, you touch them inappropriately. So arguably, Trump was actually even without showing up at that first trial, Trump was actually found that E. Jean Carroll, the jury did by a preponderance of the evidence standard, remember it's not a beyond the reasonable doubt standard, they actually found that Trump did not rape her.

As explained by a USA Today fact check, Clay Travis is repeating former President Donald Trump's failed argument who alleged E. Jean Carroll defamed him by saying she was raped in a media interview after the verdict. It states:

“Federal Judge Lewis Kaplan ruled in August that the jury verdict showed Carroll's rape allegation was 'substantially true' and dismissed the counterclaim.”

The headline to this post has been updated for clarity.