ABC News agrees to pay $15m to settle Trump defamation suit

ABC News has agreed to pay $15m to settle a defamation suit filed by President-elect Donald Trump over an inaccurate claim by the United States-based network’s anchor.

The lawsuit stemmed from on-air comments made by anchor George Stephanopoulos that Trump had been “found liable for raping” writer E Jean Carroll.

The network and the anchor also agreed to offer public apologies for the comments during a live This Week interview with Representative Nancy Mace, according to documents filed on Saturday.

The terms of the settlement require ABC News to make a $15m donation to a fund dedicated to “a presidential foundation and museum” for Trump. The broadcaster will pay an additional $1m in lawyer fees, the documents said.

Trump sued ABC and Stephanopoulos in federal court in Miami days after the network aired the segment, in which the longtime Good Morning America anchor and This Week host repeatedly misstated the verdicts in Carroll’s two civil lawsuits against Trump.

Trump had been found liable for sexual abuse – a different transgression from rape under New York law – in a 2023 case filed by the writer.

In the first of the lawsuits to go to trial, Trump was found liable last year for sexually abusing and defaming Carroll. A jury ordered him to pay her $5m.

In January, at a second trial in federal court in Manhattan, Trump was found liable on additional defamation claims and ordered to pay Carroll $83.3m.

Trump is appealing both verdicts.

Carroll, a former advice columnist, went public in a 2019 memoir with her allegation that Trump raped her in the mid-1990s at Bergdorf Goodman, a luxury Manhattan department store across the street from Trump Tower after they crossed paths at an entrance.

The case was settled one day after Judge Lisette M Reid requested depositions from both Trump and Stephanopoulos.

The settlement is the latest addition to Trump’s string of legal successes since his victory in the November 5 presidential election.

Last month, a US appeals court dismissed charges against Trump related to the alleged mishandling of classified documents after leaving the White House.

US Special Counsel Jack Smith also paused a separate federal case concerning Trump’s attempts to subvert the 2020 election results, though Trump still faces racketeering charges on the same issue in a Georgia case.

A judge has also indefinitely postponed sentencing in Trump’s May conviction in the hush money case, the only criminal charges against him to go to trial.