(Congress Report) – ABC News and its most popular anchor, George Stephanopoulos, have officially reached a settlement with President-elect Donald Trump in the defamation lawsuit he filed against them, which resulted in the network forking over $15 million. You just know the higher-ups over at ABC are wailing and gnashing their teeth after having been called out on their lies against the incoming president. They are finally being held accountable for their actions and it’s glorious.
As per Fox News, “The settlement was publicly filed on Saturday, revealing that the two parties have come to an agreement and avoided a costly trial. According to the settlement, ABC News will pay $15 million as a charitable contribution to a ‘Presidential foundation and museum to be established by or for Plaintiff, as Presidents of the United States of America have established in the past.’ Additionally, the network will pay $1 million in Trump’s attorney fees.”
As if that wasn’t awesome enough, “Stephanopoulos and ABC News also had to issue statements of ‘regret’ as an editor’s note at the bottom of a March 10, 2024, online article, about comments made earlier this year that prompted Trump to file the defamation lawsuit. The note reads, ‘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 folks at ABC News said the network was “pleased” to have brought the case to an end, which is probably true as the negative press coverage they received and the vindication the lawsuit brought Trump was absolutely killing the radical progressives who work at the outlet.
“We are pleased that the parties have reached an agreement to dismiss the lawsuit on the terms in the court filing,” an ABC News spokesperson remarked in an interview with Fox News Digital. The president-elect filed the lawsuit against Stephanopoulos after he made the assertion that Trump had been found “liable for rape” in a civil case, a comment made during a fiery interview with South Carolina Republican Rep. Nancy Mace in March 2023.
During the segment, Stephanopoulos played a clip featuring Mace talking about being a victim of rape, going on to ask her, “How do you square your endorsement of Donald Trump with the testimony we just saw?”
“You’ve endorsed Donald Trump for president. Judges and two separate juries have found him liable for rape and for defaming the victim of that rape,” Stephanopoulos went on to say, alluding to the legal victory by Trump accuser E. Jean Carroll. He repeated this claim a staggering ten times during the back-and-forth with Mace. However, a jury had found the president-elect to be liable of “sexual abuse” which has a very specific definition under New York law.
“After the federal jury found Trump liable for sexual abuse, but not rape, Judge Lewis Kaplan wrote in a later ruling that just because Carroll failed to prove rape ‘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,’” Fox reported.
At first, Stephanopoulos tried to puff up his chest and act tough in the face of Trump’s lawsuit, proclaiming with Stephen Colbert, host of a failing late night talk show on CBS, that he wouldn’t be “cowed out of doing my job because of a threat.”
“Trump sued me because I used the word ‘rape,’ even though a judge said that’s in fact what did happen. We filed a motion to dismiss,” Stephanopoulos commented during the show.
“The settlement came after U.S. Magistrate Judge Lisette M. Reid ordered Trump and Stephanopoulos on Friday to sit for depositions next week ahead of the Dec. 24 deadline for the defendants to file a motion for summary judgment, in order to avoid a trial,” Fox’s article on the subject stated. “In his lawsuit against Stephanopoulos and ABC, Trump was represented by Florida attorneys Alejandro Brito and Richard Klugh. The settlement with ABC was filed in the Southern District of Florida Federal Court where both parties signed and agreed to the terms.”
And this isn’t the only lawsuit Trump has currently filed against a mainstream media outlet. He’s currently suing CBS News for a total of $10 billion in damages, claiming they tried to interfere with the 2024 presidential election by selectively editing the answers given by Vice President Kamala Harris in an interview from October.
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It is unusual to get paid by Mickey Mouse when he screws you. He is the one used to being paid.