ABC News to pay $15M in Trump defamation suit
The lawsuit stemmed from George Stephanopoulos' on-air assertion that Trump was found liable for raping writer E. Jean Carroll
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.
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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."
