ABC agrees to pay $15 million to Trump in defamation lawsuit settlement | EUROtoday

ABC has agreed to pay $15 million as a part of a settlement with Donald Trump after the president-elect sued the community and host George Stephanopoulos for defamation.

In March, Stephanopoulos pressed congresswoman Nancy Mace about her assist for the previous president regardless of a decide discovering him “liable for rape by a jury,” he mentioned.

“Donald Trump has been found liable for defaming the victim of that rape by a jury,” Stephonopoulos mentioned on ABC’s This Week on the time. “It’s been affirmed by a judge.”

Juries in New York discovered Trump chargeable for defaming and sexually abusing E Jean Carroll after he repeatedly known as her a liar for talking publicly about allegations that he assaulted her within the Nineties. Trump has appealed the almost $90 million in judgments towards him.

Last yr, the decide overseeing these circumstances wrote that Carroll’s failure to “prove that she was ‘raped’ 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.’”

“Indeed, as the evidence at trial … makes clear, the jury found that Mr Trump in fact did exactly that,” US District Judge Lewis Kaplan wrote.

But Trump’s attorneys sued the community in federal court docket in Florida and accused Stephanopoulos of constructing “patently and demonstrably false” statements about him on air.

One day after Trump and Stephanopoulos had been ordered to look for depositions in an upcoming trial, attorneys for the events knowledgeable the court docket that ABC has agreed to pay $15 million in direction of Trump’s presidential library.

ABC can even submit a be aware on its web site expressing remorse over claims from the March phase.

The community can even be on the hook for $1 million in charges to Trump’s attorneys.

It is a uncommon lawsuit victory for the previous president, who has beforehand unsuccessfully sued The New York Times and CNN, and is presently making an attempt to assert $10 billion in damages from CBS.

Throughout his presidential marketing campaign, Trump additionally repeatedly threatened to revoke community broadcasting licenses for airing vital protection.

“We are pleased that the parties have reached an agreement to dismiss the lawsuit on the terms in the court filing,” ABC mentioned in an announcement on Saturday.