Why ABC News Settled With Donald Trump For $15 Million

CNN
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George Stephanopoulos ended Sunday’s “This Week” without any mention of himself or ABC News. Settling Donald Trump’s defamation lawsuit against them This lawsuit was sparked by a segment on “This Week,” but ABC News has not televised the $15 million settlement to Trump’s presidential foundation.

A relaxed aerial approach matches the attitude of the net. “This problem should have gone away,” said an ABC executive on condition of anonymity.

But the speculation – why ABC agreed to settle, and why now, and why at such expense – has not gone away.

Judging by the reactions to the news on social media, right-wing partisan pundits think the “why” is obvious: ABC lied about Trump, they say, and now the network is being punished accordingly.

Even some of Trump’s critics on the left are sure they know what’s going on: ABC and parent company Disney are bowing to Trump for ulterior political purposes, they say.

After all, the reasons for the agreement may remain a secret between the two parties. But media lawyers who spoke to CNN said it’s rare to see a settlement at this stage of a legal dispute.

The lawsuit stemmed from a March 10, 2024 ABC segment in which Stephanopoulos repeatedly said that Trump was “found guilty of rape in the civil suit against E. Jean Carroll. Trump has denied any wrongdoing with Carroll, but last year a jury It was discovered that Trump had sexually abused Carrollenough to make him liable for battery, but he found no evidence that Carroll raped her.

Trump filed suit after the Stephanopoulos report, alleging “actual malice,” the high standard that public figures must meet to prove they were defamed. ABC filed a motion to dismiss the case, but in July, Judge Cecilia M. Altonaga dismissed those arguments and allowed it to go forward, meaning the network was subject to the pretrial discovery process, a fancy way of saying anchors. he went through his emails and other work materials.

Last week, with an April trial date on the books, the judge said ABC must turn over the remaining documents to Trump’s legal team immediately. He also ordered the firing of Stephanopoulos and Trump in the coming days. The fix means that won’t happen.

According to court documents, ABC and Trump’s team agreed to the terms of the settlement last Friday. Settlement terms are often confidential, but not this time; A court filing on Saturday announced the payment and ABC’s apology, giving Trump’s allies a chance to celebrate publicly.

“Why would they do this now?” is the question Cuva Barrios trial attorney Ken Turkel Turkel asked a colleague over the weekend. Turkel, who is representing Sarah Palin in a revived defamation lawsuit against The New York Times, said he was just speculating like other observers. But one obvious possibility is that “maybe they didn’t want to be actively litigating against a sitting president.”

Given the facts alleged in the parties’ filings, that’s “probably the only thing that’s different” in this case, he said.

“In my experience, when media defendants are unsuccessful at the dismissal stage,” which was in July, “they focus on preparing for summary judgment to challenge the legal sufficiency of the plaintiff’s claim,” he said. “ABC wonders why settled before summary judgment stage.”

Turkel also said “you should consider” whether the discovery process turned up emails or other ABC internals that hurt the network’s case.

That was taken down by Erick Erickson, before the lawyer was a conservative radio host.

“No, the $15 million settlement is not the cost of doing business. It’s avoiding discovery,” Erickson wrote in X.

Funds have been earmarked for a future Trump “foundation and presidential museum,” and one can imagine how Trump might troll ABC with a “fake news gallery” or something similar.

ABC declined to comment on the reasons for the settlement.

The president-elect has a long history of litigation, with numerous unsuccessful cases against news outlets in the past. Some media law experts believed ABC had a good chance of winning it at trial, given the inherent challenge of proving that Stephanopoulos acted with “actual malice.” But the trials also add uncertainty and the risk of serious reputational damage, factors that ABC’s parent company, Disney, is now avoiding.

Prominent First Amendment lawyer Floyd Abrams told CNN that there was “no escaping the reality” that the deal was a “huge victory” for Trump.

“The case certainly posed a real level of risk for ABC, as George Stephanopoulos accurately summarized the jury’s verdict when the jury found Trump guilty of rape by ‘sexual abuse’ and not rape.” Abrams said. “But the fact that a jury has committed an act of sexual abuse, for a person to receive an amount of that magnitude in a settlement is troubling.”