December 15, 2024
The settlement stemmed from comments George Stephanopoulos made about Trump.
ABC News agreed to pay $15 million to settle a defamation lawsuit filed by President-elect Donald Trump’s presidential library on Dec. 14. The settlement stemmed from comments George Stephanopoulos made on a March 10 episode of “This Week.” , that Trump was found civilly responsible for the rape of writer Gene Carroll. Instead, Trump was found civilly liable for abuse and defamation, not rape.
According to The Associated Press, the settlement also required ABC News to release an editor’s note expressing the network’s regret about Stephanopoulos’ statements during the episode in question.
The $15 million will be donated as a “charitable contribution” to the yet-to-be-built Trump Presidential Library and earmarked for a non-profit organization being created in connection with the library.
The news organization will also pay more than $1 million to the law office of Trump’s lawyer, Alejandro Brito.
However, the settlement drew backlash on social media, with many pointing out that, in essence, Stephanopoulos’ comments were not too different from those of US District Judge Lewis Kaplan.
Judge Kaplan wrote in his ruling that the verdict, that even though the jury decided that Trump did not violate New York’s very narrow, very strict legal definition of rape, it did not mean that Trump did not actually rape Carroll.
According to Kaplan, the verdict does not mean that Carroll’s lawyers “failed to prove that Mr. Trump ‘raped’ her, as many people commonly understand the word ‘rape.’ Indeed…the jury found that Mr. Trump actually did just that.”
By: The New York Timessetup by ABC News likely to encourage Trump or its sycophants to file defamation suits against media outlets that provide critical or “aggressive” coverage of them.
The newspaper notes that it is usually difficult for public figures like Trump to win defamation lawsuits against the media because plaintiffs must be able to prove that the media outlet knew the statement was false or acted with reckless disregard for the accuracy of their reporting.
Elizabeth McNamara, a prominent media attorney who represented ABC News and Stephanopoulos but spoke in her independent capacity, told the paper she expects the trend to continue.
“Over the past several years, there has been a pattern and practice of using defamation litigation as a tactic to push or test the boundaries of case law,” McNamara said.
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