ABC Agrees to Give Millions Toward Trump to Settle Lawsuit

NEW YORK — ABC News is paying $15 million to Donald Trump’s presidential library to settle a defamation lawsuit filed by news anchor George Stephanopoulos over his false on-air claim that the president-elect was found legally responsible for raping author E. Jean Carroll. accepted the payment.

Like part of the settlement It was made public on Saturday ABC News posted an editor’s note on its website He expressed regret over Stephanopoulos’ statements on the March 10 episode of “This Week.” The network will also pay $1 million in legal fees to the law firm of Trump attorney Alejandro Brito.

The agreement describes ABC’s payment to the presidential library as a “philanthropic contribution,” with money earmarked for a nonprofit organization being established in connection with the yet-to-be-built library.

“We are pleased that the parties have agreed to dismiss the case based on the terms presented to the court,” ABC News spokeswoman Jeannie Kedas said.

Trump’s spokesman declined to comment.

The settlement agreement was signed on Friday; That’s the day a Florida federal judge ordered Trump and Stephanopoulos to sit for separate depositions in the case next week. The agreement means the affidavit is no longer required.

The agreement included Trump’s bold, prominent signature and an electronic signature with the initials GRS in the area where Stephanopoulos’s name appeared. Debra O’Connell, president of ABC News Group and Disney Entertainment Networks, also e-signed the agreement.

Under the agreement, ABC News must transfer $15 million for Trump’s library to an escrow account managed by Brito’s law firm within 10 days. The network also must pay Brito’s legal fees within 10 days.

While ABC’s contribution to Trump’s presidential library will be large, it will likely cover only a small portion of the cost. For example, former President Barack Obama’s library in Chicago is estimated to cost $830 million by 2021.

Trump sued ABC and Stephanopoulos in federal court in Miami, days after the network aired the segment in which the longtime “Good Morning America” ​​host and “This Week” host repeatedly misrepresented verdicts in two civil lawsuits Carroll filed against Trump.

Rep. Nancy Mace, R.S.C. During a live “This Week” interview with , Stephanopoulos falsely claimed that Trump was “found responsible for rape” and “slandered the victim of that rape.”

Neither decision included a finding of rape as defined under New York law.

In the first of the cases to be tried, Trump was found responsible for sexually harassing and slandering Carroll last year. The jury awarded him $5 million.

In the second trial, held in federal court in Manhattan in January, Trump was found liable for other defamation claims and was ordered to pay $83.3 million to Carroll.

Trump is appealing both decisions.

Carroll, a former advice columnist, went public in her 2019 memoir about her claim that Trump raped her in the mid-1990s after they crossed paths in an entrance at Bergdorf Goodman, the luxury Manhattan store across from Trump Tower.

Trump denied Carroll’s claim, saying he did not know her and had never met her at the store.

After Trump lashed out at Carroll, calling her a “crazy” who made up a “fraudulent and false story” to sell her memoirs, Carroll sued Carroll for unspecified monetary damages and sought a retraction of what she said were Trump’s defamatory denials .

Testifying in April 2023, Carroll told jurors: “I’m here because Donald Trump raped me and when I wrote about it he said it didn’t happen. “He lied and destroyed my reputation, and I’m here to try to get my life back.”

After agreeing to help Trump buy a gift for a woman, Carroll testified that Trump pushed her against the locker room wall, slammed his mouth on hers, pulled down her tights, and that’s when he inserted his hand and then his penis inside her. fought against it.

He said he eventually knocked her off him with his knees and ran away.

U.S. District Judge Lewis Kaplan, who approved the $5 million verdict at the first trial, wrote that the unanimous verdict was almost entirely in favor of Carroll, but concluded that the jury failed to prove in a “narrow, technical sense” that Trump raped her. of a certain section of the New York Penal Code.”

Kaplan, who is presiding over both of Carroll’s lawsuits against Trump, said the definition of rape in state law is “much narrower” in modern parlance than rape is defined in common parlance in some dictionaries, some federal and state criminal codes and elsewhere.

According to New York law, the penis must enter the vagina to detect rape. Forcible penetration of the vagina or other body orifice using fingers or anything else without permission is labeled “sexual abuse.”

The judge said the decision did not mean that Carroll “failed to prove that Mr. Trump ‘raped’ her, as most people generally understand the word ‘rape’.” “Indeed…the jury found that Mr. Trump had, in fact, done just that.”