ABC News agreed to contribute $15 million to President-elect Donald Trump’s presidential foundation and museum to settle a defamation lawsuit filed by Trump against the network, according to documents filed Saturday. have been filed in US court.
Trump had accused ABC News anchor George Stephanopoulos of acting “with actual malice or with a reckless disregard for the truth,” after Stephanopoulos said Trump had been “found responsible for rape” in a March 10 interview with Republican Rep. Nancy Mace of South Carolina.
Trump claimed in the filing that Stephanopoulos “knows that these statements are patently and demonstrably false.”
As part of the settlement, ABC News must also publish an “editor’s note” at the bottom of the March 10 online article that accompanied the interview, stating: “ABC News and George Stephanopoulos regret statements made about President Donald J. Trump during an interview are done. by George Stephanopoulos with Rep. Nancy Mace on ABC’s This Week on March 10, 2024.
Trump’s presidential foundation and museum have yet to be established. As part of the deal, ABC News will also pay Trump’s lawyers $1 million to cover legal costs.
The settlement, dated Friday, was signed by both Trump and Stephanopoulos.
“We are pleased that the parties have reached an agreement to dismiss the lawsuit on the terms of the lawsuit,” an ABC News spokesperson told CBS News in a statement.
CBS News has also reached out to the Trump transition team for comment.
Earlier Friday, before the two sides reached an agreement, Magistrate Judge Lisette Reid had ordered Trump to meet next week for a personal deposition in the case in the Southern District of Florida, where his Mar-a-Lago estate is located. Reid said the interrogation would have been limited to four hours.
She also instructed Stephanopoulos to also make a statement in person or remotely next week.
A federal jury was held in New York in May 2023 deemed Trump liable of sexual abuse in a civil lawsuit filed by writer E. Jean Carroll over an alleged incident that occurred in the dressing room of a Bergdorf Goodman department store in New York City in the mid-1990s. Trump was also found liable for defaming Carroll because of comments he made about her afterward published a book in 2019 with details of the alleged encounter.
However, the jury did not find Trump liable for rape. He was ordered to pay Carroll $5 million in damages. Trump has strongly denied the allegations.
In a ruling from August 2023 in which he rejected a counterclaim for defamation of Trump v. Carroll, U.S. District Judge Lewis Kaplan wrote that the jury had concluded that Trump was not liable for rape because the case technically met the level of proof required under the New York Criminal Code.
In January 2024, Trump was again held liable for defamation by a federal jury in New York in a separate lawsuit brought by Carroll. He was ordered by the jury to pay an additional $83.3 million in damages.
Graham Kates,
and Caitlin Yilek contributed to this report.
