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It is OK to dislike Trump, but that does not give protection to lies.

from https://www.theguardian.com/media/2024/dec/14/abc-george-stephanopoulos-trump-15-million

ABC News and George Stephanopoulos agree to $15m payout in Trump case
Network and anchor agree to settlement in defamation lawsuit Trump filed against network earlier this year

Maya Yang
Sat 14 Dec 2024 18.04 EST
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ABC News and anchor George Stephanopoulos agreed on Saturday to pay $15m
to a foundation and museum to be established by Donald Trump as part of
a settlement in the defamation lawsuit Trump filed against the network
earlier this year.

In addition to $15m, ABC News and Stephanopoulos agreed to issue
statements of regret surrounding a March interview Stephanopoulos had
with South Carolina’s Republican representative – and Trump ally – Nancy Mace in which he repeatedly claimed that Trump had been found “liable
for rape”.

During the interview, Stephanopoulos said numerous times that a jury had
found Trump “liable for rape” in a lawsuit filed by the columnist E Jean Carroll. Carroll had accused Trump of sexually assaulting and raping her
at Bergdorf Goodman, a New York City department store, in the 1990s.

Last year, a jury found that Trump had “sexually abused” Carroll under
New York law, but did not rape her. Trump was subsequently ordered to
pay Carroll $5m. He was also ordered to pay Carroll $83.3m after being
found liable on defamation claims.

Following Stephanopoulos’s remarks in his interview with Mace, Trump
filed the defamation lawsuit against the US network and Stephanopoulos,
one of ABC News’s main anchors.

Stephanopoulos remained defiant, telling talkshow host Stephen Colbert
in May that he would not be “cowed out of doing my job because of a threat”.

According to Saturday’s settlement, ABC News will “transfer in the
amount of fifteen million US dollars … to be made to a presidential foundation and museum to be established by or for [Donald Trump], as
presidents of the United States of America have established in the past … .”

The settlement also states that ABC News and Stephanopoulos “shall
publicly publish the following statement by adding it as an editor’s
note at the bottom of a March 10, 2024 online article [surrounding Stephanopoulos’s interview]: ‘ABC News and George Stephanopoulos regret statements regarding president Donald J Trump made during an interview
by George Stephanopoulos with rep Nancy Mace on ABC’s This Week on March
10, 2024’”.

The network and Stephanopoulos will also pay $1m in Trump’s attorney
fees, the settlement said.

In exchange, Trump will file a dismissal of the lawsuit and “take
whatever other actions necessary to ensure that the action is dismissed
in its entirety with prejudice”.

In a statement to the Hill, an ABC News spokesperson said: “We are
pleased that the parties have reached an agreement to dismiss the
lawsuit on the terms in the court filing.”

Trump has yet to publicly comment on the settlement.

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