An MSNBC host mentioned ABC Information anchor George Stephanopoulos’ feedback that led President-elect Donald Trump to file a defamation lawsuit towards the Disney-owned community “seems to hold up” — even if the corporate agreed to pay $15 million to settle the declare.
Symone Sanders-Townsend, host of Sunday’s “The Weekend” speak present on Comcast’s left-leaning cable channel, mentioned ABC Information paying the settlement “feels like it has a real chilling effect.”
Sanders-Townsend, a former spokesperson for the Biden White Home, mentioned throughout the broadcast that “what Stephanopoulos said” about Trump being chargeable for rape “seems to hold up [with] what the judge said after the fact…” Her feedback had been reported by Mediaite.
She famous that Stephanopoulos is paying $1 million of his personal cash to Trump’s attorneys whereas ABC Information is paying $15 million.
“It’s insane,” she mentioned.
The Submit has sought remark from ABC Information, MSNBC and the Trump transition.
ABC Information on Saturday agreed to pay $15 million towards Trump’s presidential library to settle a defamation lawsuit over anchor Stephanopoulos’ inaccurate on-air assertion that the president-elect had been discovered civilly chargeable for raping author E. Jean Carroll.
As a part of the settlement made public Saturday, ABC Information posted an editor’s word to its web site expressing remorse over Stephanopoulos’ statements throughout a March 10 section on his “This Week” program.
“We are pleased that the parties have reached an agreement to dismiss the lawsuit on the terms in the court filing,” ABC Information spokesperson Jeannie Kedas mentioned.
The settlement settlement was signed Friday, the identical day a Florida federal decide ordered Trump and Stephanopoulos to sit down for separate depositions within the case subsequent week. The settlement signifies that sworn testimony is now not required.
The settlement bore Trump’s daring, distinct signature and an digital signature with the initials GRS in an area for Stephanopoulos’ identify.
Debra OConnell, the president of ABC Information Group and Disney Leisure Networks, additionally e-signed the settlement.
ABC Information should switch the $15 million for Trump’s library to an escrow account that’s being managed by Brito’s regulation agency inside 10 days, based on the settlement.
The community should additionally pay Brito’s authorized charges inside 10 days.
Trump sued ABC and Stephanopoulos in federal courtroom in Miami days after the community aired the section, wherein the longtime “Good Morning America” anchor and “This Week” host repeatedly misstated the verdicts in Carroll’s two civil lawsuits towards Trump.
Throughout a stay “This Week” interview with Rep. Nancy Mace (R-SC), Stephanopoulos wrongly claimed that Trump had been “found liable for rape” and “defaming the victim of that rape.”
Neither verdict concerned a discovering of rape as outlined beneath New York regulation.
Within the first of the lawsuits to go to trial, Trump was discovered liable final 12 months of sexually abusing and defaming Carroll. A jury ordered him to pay her $5 million.
In January, at a second trial in federal courtroom in Manhattan, Trump was discovered liable on further defamation claims and ordered to pay Carroll $83.3 million.
Trump is interesting each verdicts.
Carroll, a former recommendation columnist, went public in a 2019 memoir together with her allegation that Trump raped her within the mid-Nineties at Bergdorf Goodman, a luxurious Manhattan division retailer throughout the road from Trump Tower, after they crossed paths at an entrance.
Trump denied her declare, saying he didn’t know Carroll and by no means bumped into her on the retailer.
After Trump lashed out, calling Carroll a “nut job” who invented “a fraudulent and false story” to promote her memoir, she sued him for unspecified financial damages and sought a retraction of what she mentioned had been Trump’s defamatory denials.
Testifying in April 2023, Carroll informed jurors: “I’m here because Donald Trump raped me, and when I wrote about it, he said it didn’t happen. He lied and shattered my reputation, and I’m here to try and get my life back.”
After she’d agreed to assist Trump store for a present for a girl, Carroll testified that he pushed her towards a dressing room wall, stamped his mouth onto hers, yanked down her tights and shoved his hand after which his penis inside her whereas she struggled towards him.
She mentioned she lastly kneed him off her and fled.
In upholding the $5 million judgment within the first trial, US District Choose Lewis Kaplan wrote that the unanimous verdict was nearly fully in favor of Carroll, besides that the jury concluded she had did not show that Trump raped her “within the narrow, technical meaning of a particular section of the New York Penal Law.”
With Submit wires
