ABC News TV network to pay Trump $15 million to settle defamation suit

ABC News TV channel will pay $15 million to the President-elect of the United States Donald Trump to settle the case on protection of honor and dignity in pre-trial order. This was reported on December 14 by the Associated Press (AP) with reference to the documents of the court of the Southern District of Florida.

The document shows that the TV channel will pay $15 million as a charitable contribution to the "presidential fund and museum to be established" by the plaintiff. In addition, the defendant will pay Trump's legal fees to the tune of $1 million.

In March of this year, the president-elect sued ABC News and its host George Stephanopoulos, who said on air that Trump was found guilty of raping writer Elizabeth Jean Carroll.

Earlier last May 12, Donald Trump appealed a New York court ruling that he must pay $5 million in a lawsuit filed by writer Elizabeth Carroll.

In May 2023, a court in New York found Trump guilty in a civil suit by Carroll, who accused him of harassment and defamation. In doing so, the jury found that the politician did not commit the rape he was originally accused of.

In 2019, Carroll published a book alleging that in late 1995 or early 1996, Trump raped her in the fitting room of a downtown New York City store. She filed a related lawsuit in court at the time, but the case did not proceed. Last November, the American woman filed a new lawsuit. Trump repeatedly denied the allegations against him, saying that he never met with Carroll.

In turn, the plaintiff's lawyer Roberta Kaplan at the Manhattan federal court hearing drew attention to the fact that Trump did not appear in court to testify in the case. She also pointed out that her client was exactly to Donald Trump's taste, although the former president himself said he would not have done anything like that with the journalist because she was "not his type."

Hearings on the lawsuit began in April against the backdrop of the election campaign, when the politician had already announced his intention to run for a second presidential term in 2024. In early May, Trump's lawyer Joe Tacopina filed a motion asking to invalidate the trial. He accused Judge Lewis Kaplan of bias and sympathy for Carroll. Meanwhile, a judge in New York denied the former president's request to nullify the trial.