NEW YORK (AP) — ABC News is settling a defamation lawsuit over anchor George Stephanopoulos’ inaccurate on-air claims that the president-elect was found civilly liable for raping author E. Jean. Agreed to pay $15 million for President Donald Trump’s library. Carol.
As part of the settlement announced Saturday, ABC News posted an editor’s note on its website expressing regret over Stephanopoulos’ comments on the March 10 “This Week” show. The network will also pay $1 million in legal fees to the law firm of Mr. Trump’s lawyer, Alejandro Brito.
The settlement agreement describes ABC’s payments to the presidential library as a “charitable contribution,” and says the funds will go to a nonprofit organization that will be established in connection with the library, which has yet to be built.
“We are pleased that the parties have reached an agreement to dismiss the lawsuit under the terms of the court filing,” said ABC News spokeswoman Jeannie Kedas.
A spokesperson for President Trump declined to comment.
Trump, Stephanopoulos and ABC executives signed the settlement agreement on Friday.
The document featured Mr. Trump’s signature in clear bold letters and Mr. Stephanopoulos’ electronic signature with the initials “GRS” in the space for his name. Debra O’Connell, president of ABC News Group and Disney Entertainment Networks, also electronically signed the agreement.
Under the agreement, ABC News must transfer the $15 million it is providing to Trump’s library into an escrow account controlled by Brito’s law firm within 10 days. The network must also pay Brito’s legal fees within 10 days.
Although ABC’s donation to the Trump presidential library is large, it will likely only cover a fraction of its costs. For example, former President Barack Obama’s library in Chicago is estimated to cost $830 million as of 2021.
President Trump sued ABC and Stephanopoulos in federal court in Miami days after ABC aired the segment. In that segment, the longtime “Good Morning America” anchor and host of “This Week” repeatedly misrepresented the verdicts in two civil lawsuits filed by Carroll against Trump.
In a “This Week” live interview with Rep. Nancy Mace, R.S.C., Stephanopoulos falsely claimed that Trump was “found responsible for the rape” and “vilified the victim of that rape.” he claimed.
Neither verdict included a finding of rape as defined by New York state law.
In the first case to go to trial, Trump was convicted last year of sexually assaulting and defaming Carroll. The jury ordered him to pay $5 million.
In January, at a second trial in federal court in Manhattan, Trump was found liable in an additional defamation suit and ordered to pay Carroll $83.3 million.
WATCH: Juror decides Trump should pay author E. Jean Carroll $83.3 million for defamation
Trump is appealing both verdicts.
Carroll, a former advice columnist, published claims in her 2019 memoir that Trump raped her in the mid-1990s at Bergdorf Goodman, the luxury Manhattan department store across from Trump Tower, after they passed each other at the entrance. .
Trump denied her claims, saying he did not know Carroll and had never met her at the store.
Carroll is seeking unspecified monetary damages after President Trump slammed her as a “nut job” who concocted a “fraudulent and false story” to sell her memoir. He filed a lawsuit seeking to retract what he said was a defamatory denial of President Trump.
Testifying in April 2023, Carroll told jurors: “I’m here because Donald Trump raped me, and when I wrote about it, he said it never happened.” He lied and destroyed my reputation, so I came here to get my life back.”
After agreeing to help Trump buy a gift for a woman, Carroll said Trump pushed her against a wall in a dressing room, stomped on her mouth, pulled down her tights and shoved his hand inside her He testified that he pushed his penis inside her. I had a hard time against him.
She said she eventually forced him to her knees and ran away.
U.S. District Judge Lewis Kaplan upheld the trial court’s $5 million verdict, concluding that the jury “failed to prove that Trump raped Carroll within a narrow technical sense.” Except that, he wrote, the unanimous verdict was almost entirely in Carroll’s favor. It is based on certain provisions of the New York Penal Code. ”
Kaplan, who presided over both of Carroll’s lawsuits against Trump, said the definition of rape under state law is different from the definition of rape in modern common parlance, some dictionaries, and some federal and state criminal laws. “It’s much narrower,” he said.
New York state law requires penile penetration of the vagina to detect rape. Forcibly inserting a finger into a vagina or other body orifice without consent is considered “sexual abuse.”
The judge said the ruling meant Carroll “could not prove that Mr. Trump ‘raped’ her, as most people commonly understand the word ‘rape.'” He said it was not something he would do. Indeed…a jury found that Mr. Trump did, in fact, do just that. ”
Associated Press writers Jill Colvin and Zeke Miller contributed to this report.
