A lawyer at the Trump Organization told The Daily Beast that legally speaking, you can’t rape your spouse. “It is true,” said special counsel Michael Cohen. “You cannot rape your spouse. And there’s very clear case law.” Cohen was defending Donald Trump against allegations made by his ex-wife Ivana Trump, who once used the word “rape” to describe an incident between them in 1989. Ivana Trump later walked back her statement and said she felt “violated” by the experience. The “marital rape exemption” in New York state law ended in 1984—five years before Ivana Trump’s accusations—which means spouses could be prosecuted for marital rape.
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