Donald Trump's lawyer says 'you cannot rape your spouse'

Donald Trump and Ivana Trump.
(Image credit: Dave Kotinsky/Getty Images)

While writing a piece for The Daily Beast about Donald Trump's ex-wife Ivana using "rape" to describe an incident between the couple while they were still married, writers Tim Mak and Brandy Zazrozny asked Michael Cohen, special counsel at The Trump Organization, for comment. And boy, did they get a comment.

"You're talking about the frontrunner for the GOP, presidential candidate, as well as private individual who never raped anybody," Cohen said, according to The Daily Beast. "And, of course, understand that by the very definition, you can't rape your spouse.... It is true," he added. "You cannot rape your spouse. And there's very clear case law." (This is not accurate: In New York, the marital rape exemption law was struck down in 1984.)

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Catherine Garcia, The Week US

Catherine Garcia has worked as a senior writer at The Week since 2014. Her writing and reporting have appeared in Entertainment Weekly, The New York Times, Wirecutter, NBC News and "The Book of Jezebel," among others. She's a graduate of the University of Redlands and the Columbia University Graduate School of Journalism.