ABC News can pay $15 million to a “presidential basis and museum” in a deal reached with the president-elect Donald Trump In his defamation lawsuit in opposition to the community and host George Stephanopoulos.
The settlement, unveiled publicly Saturday, reveals that the community may also pay $1 million in Trump’s authorized charges and subject an apology.
ABC News will subject the next assertion as an editor’s be aware on the net article on the heart of the lawsuit: “ABC News and George Stephanopoulos remorse statements concerning President Donald J. Trump made throughout an interview by George Stephanopoulos with Congresswoman Nancy Mace on ABC’s This Week, March 10, 2024.
“We are happy that the events have reached an settlement to dismiss the lawsuit below the phrases set forth within the court docket submitting,” an ABC News spokesperson wrote in an announcement.
Trump filed a lawsuit in federal court docket in Florida earlier this 12 months, alleging that Stephanopoulos and ABC News defamed him when the host stated 10 instances throughout a controversial on-air interview with South Carolina’s GOP consultant Nancy Mace in March {that a} jury discovered Trump had “raped” E. Jean Carroll.
Carroll claimed that Trump raped her in a division retailer within the mid-Nineties and that he defamed her when she denied his declare. Trump has denied any wrongdoing in opposition to Carroll.
In 2023, a jury discovered that Trump had sexually abused Carroll, sufficient to carry him chargeable for battery, though it didn’t discover that Carroll had confirmed that he had raped her. The jury awarded Carroll $5 million for battery and defamation. In January, Carroll obtained an award an additional $83.3 million damages for defamatory statements Trump made that disparaged her and denied her rape allegations.
A judge concluded in August 2023, when he dismissed Trump’s countersuit in opposition to Carroll, that Trump’s declare that he raped Carroll was “considerably true.” The choose wrote that Trump “raped” her within the broadest sense of the phrase, as individuals usually perceive it, although not within the slender sense outlined by New York state regulation.
In the lawsuit filed in opposition to ABC News in March, Trump stated Stephanopoulos’ statements had been “false, intentional, malicious and designed to trigger hurt.”
A the judge in July refused to dismiss Trump’s lawsuit in opposition to the community, writing that these definitions had been fairly totally different. He added that the case would activate “whether or not it’s considerably true to say {that a} jury (or juries) discovered (Trump) chargeable for rape by a jury regardless of the jury’s verdict expressly discovering that he was not chargeable for rape.”
The settlement got here a day after a federal choose dominated that Trump and Stephanopoulos should take a deposition subsequent week. The president-elect can now keep away from testifying below oath, which may have posed potential authorized dangers as he prepares to return to the White House.
Trump it has a story to file lawsuits in opposition to the media. At the top of October, filed a lawsuit in opposition to CBS, looking for $10 billion in damages over the community’s “60 Minutes” interview with Vice President Kamala Harris. His authorized counsel stated the interview with Harris and related programming had been “partisan and illegal acts of election and voter interference” supposed to “deceive the general public and try to tip the scales” of the presidential election in his favor.
This story has been up to date with further info.
CNN’s Brian Stelter, Marshall Cohen and Kaanita Iyer contributed to this report.
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