ABC News Anchor George Stephanopoulos
Paula Lobo | ABC | Getty Images
ABC News has agreed to pay $15 million towards Donald Trump’s presidential library to settle a lawsuit over anchor George Stephanopoulos’ inaccurate on-air assertion that the president-elect had been discovered civilly answerable for raping author E. Jean Carroll.
According to settlement paperwork made public Saturday, ABC may even publish a notice on its web site expressing remorse over the declare in a March 10 phase on Stephanopoulos’ “This Week” program and pay $1 million in authorized charges to Trump’s lawyer.
In a press release, ABC News stated: “We are happy that the events have reached an settlement to dismiss the lawsuit on the phrases within the courtroom submitting.”
Trump sued Stephanopoulos and ABC for defamation days after the anchor claimed throughout an interview with Rep. Nancy Mace, R-S.C., that Trump had been “discovered answerable for rape,” which misstated the verdicts in Carroll’s two lawsuits towards him.
Last 12 months, Trump was discovered answerable for sexually assaulting and defaming Carroll and was ordered to pay her $5 million. In January, he was discovered liable on extra defamation claims and ordered to pay Carroll $83.3 million. Trump is interesting each verdicts.
Neither verdict concerned a discovering of rape as outlined below New York regulation.
The decide in each circumstances, Lewis Kaplan, has stated that the jury’s conclusion was that Carroll had did not show that Trump raped her “inside the slim, technical that means of a specific part of the New York Penal Law.”
Kaplan famous that the definition of rape was “far narrower” than how rape is outlined in widespread fashionable parlance, in some dictionaries, in some federal and state legal statutes and elsewhere.
The decide stated the decision didn’t imply that Carroll “did not show that Mr. Trump ‘raped’ her as many individuals generally perceive the phrase ‘rape.’ Indeed … the jury discovered that Mr. Trump, the truth is, did precisely that.”
