The court case in question has to do with ‘anchor’ George Stephanopoulos’ incorrect claim, made on air, that Trump had been held civilly responsible for the rape of journalist and writer E. Jean Carroll.
American television broadcaster ABC News agreed this Saturday to pay 15 million dollars (14.2 million euros) to the presidential library of US President-elect Donald Trump to settle a defamation lawsuit.
The court case in question has to do with ‘anchor’ George Stephanopoulos’ incorrect claim, made on air, that Trump had been held civilly responsible for the rape of journalist and writer E. Jean Carroll.
Under the terms of the agreement, released this Saturday, ABC will also post a note on its website regretting the journalist’s statement, made in a March 10 segment of Stephanopoulos’ “This Week,” and will pay a $1 million in Trump’s legal fees.
In a statement, ABC News said: “We are pleased that the parties have reached an agreement to terminate the lawsuit as set forth in the court filing.”
Trump sued Stephanopoulos and ABC for defamation days after the anchor claimed, during an interview with South Carolina Republican congresswoman Nancy Mace, that Trump had been “found guilty of rape,” which misrepresented the verdicts in Carroll’s two lawsuits. against him.
Last year, Trump was found guilty of sexually assaulting and defaming Carroll and was ordered to pay her five million dollars (4.76 million euros). In January, he was found guilty of further defamation charges and ordered to pay Carroll $83.3 million (€79.3 million). Trump has appealed both verdicts.
Neither verdict involved a finding of violation as defined in New York State law.
The judge in both cases, Lewis Kaplan, said the jury’s conclusion was that Carroll had failed to prove that Trump violated her “in the strict and technical sense of a particular section of the New York Penal Code.”
Kaplan stressed that the definition of rape used there is “much narrower” than the definition of rape used in common modern language, some dictionaries, some federal and state criminal statutes, and other legislation.
The judge said the verdict did not mean that Carroll “failed to prove that Mr. Trump had ‘raped’ her, as many people normally understand the term ‘rape.’ In fact, the jury found that Mr. Trump had done just that.” .
