ABC News to pay $15M in Trump defamation suit

What happened

ABC News said Saturday it will donate $15 million to President-elect Donald Trump's future "presidential foundation and museum" to resolve a defamation lawsuit Trump filed in March against the network and its anchor George Stephanopoulos. ABC also agreed to pay $1 million in Trump's attorney fees.

Who said what

Trump sued after Stephanopoulos said on "This Week" that the former president had been found "liable for rape," misstating a jury's finding that he sexually abused writer E. Jean Carroll. U.S. District Judge Lewis Kaplan, who oversaw Carroll's civil lawsuits against Trump, said the jury did find that "Trump 'raped' her as many people commonly understand the word 'rape,'" but not under New York's "far narrower" legal definition. Trump is appealing the verdict.

ABC News posted a note on its website expressing "regret" for "statements regarding" Trump on the March 10 broadcast.

The Week

Escape your echo chamber. Get the facts behind the news, plus analysis from multiple perspectives.

SUBSCRIBE & SAVE

Sign up for The Week's Free Newsletters

From our morning news briefing to a weekly Good News Newsletter, get the best of The Week delivered directly to your inbox.

From our morning news briefing to a weekly Good News Newsletter, get the best of The Week delivered directly to your inbox.

Sign up

Latest Videos From

What next?

It is "notoriously difficult for public figures" like Trump to "win defamation lawsuits," The New York Times said, and ABC's deal was criticized by "those who perceived the network as needlessly bowing down" to Trump, emboldening him to "intensify" his use of defamation threats and other intimidation tactics to "crack down on unfavorable media coverage."