BREAKING: Reason Why ABC NEWS Agrees To Pay $15 Million Dollars To Donald Trump—-The US President-elect Donald Trump has agreed to a settlement with ABC News and its top anchor, George Stephanopoulos, in a defamation suit he filed.
According to the settlement was publicly filed on Saturday and reported by FOX News, the agreement, which was to avoid a costly trial, will result in the news network paying the president-elect $15 million.
ABC News, according to the settlement, will pay $15 million as a charitable 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.”
Additionally, a sum of $1 million will be paid by the new network in Trump’s attorney fees while both defendants will issue statements of “regret” as an editor’s note at the bottom of a March 10, 2024, online article, about comments made earlier this year that prompted Trump to file a defamation lawsuit.
“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,” the statement reads.
Why is ABC News apologising?
The ABC News anchor, Stephanopoulos, had, during a contentious interview with Rep. Nancy Mace, R-S.C., in March, asserted that Trump was found “liable for rape” in a civil case; this claim prompted Trump to file a defamation suit.
After playing a clip of Mace discussing being a victim of rape, Stephanopoulos asked her, “How do you square your endorsement of Donald Trump with the testimony we just saw?”
Alluding to the legal victory by Trump accuser E. Jean Carroll, Stephanopoulos said, “You’ve endorsed Donald Trump for president. Judges and two separate juries have found him liable for rape and for defaming the victim of that rape.”
Despite a jury’s determination that Trump was liable for “sexual abuse,” which has a distinct definition under New York law, Stephanopoulos repeatedly claimed his spat with Mace.
According to Fox News, Judge Lewis Kaplan, a federal jury, after finding Trump liable for sexual abuse, but not rape, wrote in a later ruling that just because Carroll failed to prove rape “within the meaning of the New York Penal Law does not mean that she failed to prove that Mr. Trump ‘raped’ her as many people commonly understand the word ‘rape.’
Stephanopoulos initially told CBS late-night host Stephen Colbert that he wouldn’t be “cowed out of doing my job because of a threat.”
“Trump sued me because I used the word ‘rape,’ even though a judge said that’s in fact what did happen. We filed a motion to dismiss,” Stephanopoulos said.
How the parties opted for settlement
The U.S. Magistrate Judge Lisette M. Reid had on Friday ordered Trump and Stephanopoulos to sit for depositions next week ahead of the Dec. 24 deadline for the defendants to file a motion for summary judgment, to avoid a trial.
This was the genesis of the settlement in the lawsuit where Florida attorneys Alejandro Brito and Richard Klugh represented Donald Trump.
The settlement with ABC was filed in the Southern District of Florida Federal Court where both parties signed and agreed to the terms.
The settlement comes after a string of legal victories for Trump and his legal team, coordinated by senior legal adviser Boris Epshteyn.
Trump is also suing CBS News for $10 billion in damages, stating the network practised “deceptive conduct” for election interference in its interview in October with Vice President Kamala Harris.
