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ABC News has agreed to pay $15m (£12m) to US President-elect Donald Trump to settle a defamation lawsuit after its star presenter falsely said he had been found “responsible for rape”.
George Stephanopoulos made these statements repeatedly during an interview on March 10 of this year while questioning a congresswoman about her support for Trump.
A jury in a civil case last year determined Trump was responsible for “sexual abuse,” which has a specific definition under New York law.
As part of Saturday’s agreement, first reported by Fox News Digital, ABC also published an editor’s note expressing his “regret” for Stephanopoulos’ statements.
Under the agreement, ABC News will pay $15 million as a charitable contribution to a “presidential foundation and museum to be established by or for the plaintiff, as has been established by presidents of the United States of America in the past.”
The $15 million will go to Trump’s future presidential library, US media reported.
The network also agreed to pay $1 million toward Trump’s legal fees.
Under the agreement, the network will publish an editor’s note at the end of its March 10, 2024, online news article about the story.
It will say: “ABC News and George Stephanopoulos regret statements about President Donald J. Trump made during an interview by George Stephanopoulos with Rep. Nancy Mace on ABC’s This Week on March 10, 2024.”
An ABC News spokesperson said in a statement that the company was “pleased that the parties have reached an agreement to dismiss the lawsuit under the terms of the court filing.”
In 2023, a New York civil court found that Trump sexually abused E. Jean Carroll in a department store dressing room in 1996. He was also found guilty of defaming the magazine’s columnist.
Judge Lewis Kaplan said the jury’s conclusion was that Carroll had failed to prove that Trump violated her “within the strict technical meaning of a particular section of the New York Penal Law.”
Judge Kaplan noted that the definition of rape was “much narrower” than the way rape is defined in common modern language, in some dictionaries, and in criminal laws elsewhere.
In a separate case, also presided over by the same judge, a jury ordered Trump to pay $83.3 million to Carroll for additional defamatory statements.
Trump is appealing both verdicts.
During the March 10 broadcast, Stephanopoulos asked South Carolina Republican Congresswoman Nancy Mace how she could support Trump.
The host falsely said that “the judges and two separate juries found him responsible for rape.”
Stephanopoulos repeated the claim 10 times throughout the broadcast.
Before the ruling, a federal judge had ordered Trump and Stephanopoulos to present sworn evidence in their depositions next week.
Trump also sued CBS, the BBC’s US broadcast partner, for “misleading conduct” in relation to an interview with Kamala Harris.
In 2023, a judge dismissed his defamation suit against CNN, in which he alleged that the network had compared him to Adolf Hitler.
Lawsuits against the New York Times and the Washington Post have also been dismissed.
