ABC News has agreed to pay US President-elect Donald Trump $15m (£12m) to settle a libel swimsuit after its host falsely claimed he had been discovered “responsible for rape”.
George Stephanopoulos made these statements repeatedly throughout an interview on March 10 of this 12 months, difficult a congresswoman over her help for Trump.
A jury in a civil case determined last year Trump was accountable for “sexual abuse,” which has a selected definition beneath New York regulation.
As a part of Saturday’s deal, first reported by Fox News Digital, ABC additionally posted an editor’s note expressing his “remorse” for Stephanopoulos’ statements.
Under the settlement, ABC News pays $15 million as a charitable contribution to a “presidential basis and museum to be established by or for plaintiff, as previous presidents of the United States of America have established.”
The $15 million will go to Trump’s future presidential library, US media reported.
The community additionally agreed to pay $1 million towards Trump’s authorized charges.
Under the settlement, the community will publish an editor’s word on the backside of its March 10, 2024 on-line information article in regards to the story.
It will say: “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 on March 10, 2024.”
An ABC News spokesperson stated in a press release that the corporate is “happy that the events have reached an settlement to dismiss the lawsuit beneath the phrases set forth in court docket.”
In 2023, a New York civil court docket discovered that Trump had sexually abused E Jean Carroll in a division retailer dressing room in 1996. He was additionally discovered responsible of defaming the journal columnist.
Judge Lewis Kaplan stated the jury’s conclusion was that Carroll did not show that Trump raped her “inside the slender and technical that means of a specific part of New York legal regulation.”
Judge Kaplan famous that the definition of rape is “a lot narrower” than how rape is outlined in trendy frequent parlance, in some dictionaries and in legal legal guidelines elsewhere.
In a separate case, additionally presided over by the identical decide, a jury ordered Trump to pay Carroll $83.3 million for extra defamatory statements.
Trump appeals each verdicts.
During the March 10 broadcast, Stephanopoulos requested South Carolina Republican Congresswoman Nancy Mace how she may help Trump.
The host falsely claimed that “judges and two separate juries discovered him accountable for rape.”
Stephanopoulos repeated the assertion 10 occasions throughout the broadcast.
Before the ruling, a federal Justice of the Peace decide ordered Trump and Stephanopoulos to supply sworn proof throughout depositions subsequent week.
Trump additionally sued CBS, the BBC’s US broadcast accomplice, for “misleading conduct” throughout an interview with Kamala Harris.
In 2023, a decide threw out his defamation swimsuit in opposition to CNN, by which he claimed the community had in contrast him to Adolf Hitler.
He additionally had lawsuits dismissed in opposition to the New York Times and the Washington Post.
