The television network ABC News and its star anchor, George Stephanopoulos, have reached an agreement with Donald Trump, by which the media outlet will pay a foundation of the president-elect of the United States 15 million dollars (about 14.3 million euros), will shell out a million dollars in the Republican’s legal fees and make a public apology, to resolve a defamation lawsuit filed by the Republican earlier this year.
The agreement represents a major legal victory for the next American president, who had filed the lawsuit in relation to statements that Stephanopoulos had made live, during one of his programs, in relation to the sexual abuse and defamation case for which Trump He was sentenced to pay five million dollars to the writer E. Jean Carroll.
The presenter spoke about how Trump raped the magazine’s former columnist elle. In the civil hearing held on the case, the jury found the then-former president responsible for sexual abuse, not rape. However, the judge in the case himself ended up clarifying that the jury’s decision had been due to the legal definition of rape in the State of New York, which specifies that there must be forced penetration of the penis into the vagina, and the verdict did not imply that Carroll would not have “succeeded in proving that Mr. Trump raped her in the sense in which many people commonly understand the word rape.”
The then Republican presidential candidate accused Stephanopoulos of damaging his reputation by having repeated on several occasions during the program that he had been sentenced to pay compensation for having raped the writer.
To close the case, ABC News and Stephanopoulos have agreed to publish a statement in which they say they “regret” the comments the presenter had made in March during a televised interview. In addition, the television network will contribute $15 million to Trump’s future presidential foundation and museum, and will cover the legal costs incurred by the president-elect, worth $1 million. “We are pleased that the parties have reached an agreement to end the lawsuit in court,” said a spokesperson for the media outlet.
The agreement between the television network and the president-elect was announced a day after a judge had summoned Trump and Stephanopoulos to testify in a Florida court next week.
