ABC News has agreed to pay $15 million (£12 million) to US President-elect Donald Trump to settle a defamation lawsuit after its star presenter wrongly said he had been found “liable for rape.”
George Stephanopoulos made the assertions again during an interview with a lawmaker on March 10 this year when questioning her support for Trump.
A jury in a civil case this year found Trump accountable for “sexual abuse,” which has a particular definition under New York law.
As part of Saturday’s settlement, which was originally reported by Fox News Digital, ABC will also release a statement expressing “regret” for Stephanopoulos’ words.
According to the settlement, ABC News will make a $15 million charity contribution to a “presidential foundation and museum to be established by or for Plaintiff, as Presidents of the United States of America have established in the past.”
The network also agreed to pay $1 million for Trump’s legal bills.
The settlement requires the network to include an editor’s notice at the bottom of its online news piece regarding the story on March 10, 2024.
It will say: “ABC News and George Stephanopoulos regret statements regarding President Donald J. Trump made during an interview by George Stephanopoulos with Rep. Nancy Mace on ABC’s This Week on March 10, 2024.”
An ABC News spokesperson said in a statement the company was “pleased that the parties have reached an agreement to dismiss the lawsuit on the terms in the court filing.”.
In 2023, a New York civil court ruled that Trump sexually molested E. Jean Carroll in a department store dressing room in 1996.
He was also convicted of defaming a magazine columnist. According to Judge Lewis Kaplan, the jury determined that Ms. Carroll failed to prove that Trump raped her “within the narrow, technical meaning of a particular section of the New York Penal Law.”
Judge Kaplan stated that the concept of rape was “far narrower” than how it is understood in ordinary modern vernacular, dictionaries, and penal statutes elsewhere. In a separate case presided over by the same judge, a jury ordered Trump to pay Ms. Carroll $83.3 million for additional defamatory statements.
During the March 10 show, Stephanopoulos asked South Carolina Republican Congresswoman Nancy Mace how she could support Trump.
The anchor stated incorrectly that “judges and two separate juries have found him liable for rape.”.
Stephanopoulos repeated the assertion ten times during the show. Prior to the ruling, a federal magistrate court ordered Trump and Stephanopoulos to provide sworn testimony at depositions next week.
Trump has also sued CBS, the BBC’s US broadcast partner, for “deceptive conduct” regarding an interview with Kamala Harris. In 2023, a judge dismissed his defamation claim against CNN, alleging that the network had compared him to Adolf Hitler.
He has also had his claims against the New York Times and the Washington Post dismissed.
