President-elect Donald Trump, left, and Vice President-elect JD Vance attend the NCAA college football game between Army and Navy at Northwest Stadium in Landover, Md.
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NEW YORK — In a significant development, a $15 million settlement has been reached between ABC News and Donald Trump regarding a defamation lawsuit. This lawsuit originated from inaccurate comments made by anchor George Stephanopoulos, who claimed that Trump had been found civilly liable for raping writer E. Jean Carroll.
As part of the settlement, ABC will post a public note on its website expressing regret over the misleading statement made during a segment of Stephanopoulos’ program on March 10. Additionally, the network will cover $1 million in legal fees for Trump’s attorney.
ABC News stated, “We are pleased that the parties have reached an agreement to dismiss the lawsuit on the terms in the court filing.”
The controversy erupted when Trump filed the defamation suit shortly after Stephanopoulos’s remarks during an interview, where he misstated the findings of Carroll’s two lawsuits against Trump, labeling them as a determination of liability for rape.
Recently, Trump was found liable for sexually assaulting and defaming Carroll, resulting in a court order for him to pay her $5 million. Following that, another ruling in January resulted in Trump being ordered to pay an additional $83.3 million for further defamation claims. Trump is currently appealing these verdicts.
Importantly, neither of these verdicts involved a legal definition of rape under New York law. The presiding judge, Lewis Kaplan, noted that the jury concluded Carroll did not prove that Trump raped her according to the specific legal definition, which is more restrictive than common understandings of the term. Kaplan clarified that while the jury’s findings did not align with the narrow legal definition, it did not negate their determination that Trump engaged in behavior commonly understood as rape.
