ABC's $15 million settlement in Trump's rape defamation case sparked surprise and outrage. Here's why

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ABC's $15 million settlement with Donald Trump following the president-elect's defamation lawsuit alarmed legal analysts and sparked criticism that the network and its parent company Disney had given up without a fight.

Knee bent. Ring Kissed, wrote prominent Democratic elections lawyer Marc Elias. Another traditional media chooses obedience.

Former Washington Post reporter Paul Farhi called the settlement a terrible precedent and a huge betrayal.

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Donald Trump sued ABC and anchor George Stephanopoulos over on-air remarks claiming the president-elect was convicted of rape (AFP via Getty Images)

I am old enough to remember and to have worked on cases in which newspapers vigorously defended libel cases instead of withdrawing before the accused was even impeached, wrote Joyce Vance, former federal prosecutor and MSNBC legal analyst.

On Saturday, it was announced that ABC and host George Stephanopoulos had agreed to settle claims at the center of Trump's lawsuit against the network and one of its star anchors, who was sued for saying Trump had been convicted of rape by jury.

The $15 million settlement is intended for Trump's presidential library.

Stephanopoulos misinterpreted the jury's precise findings in a lengthy legal battle involving allegations that Trump sexually assaulted a woman in a New York department store in the 1990s and then defamed her by saying she was lying about it. subject.

His comments appeared to summarize what a federal judge overseeing these cases explained to the former president last year, but the judge overseeing Trump's trial disagreed that Stephanopoulos' statements were in largely true, giving rise to what would become a protracted legal battle if it went to trial.

What the judge said in the E Jean Carrolls case

E Jean Carroll claimed that Trump assaulted her in a dressing room where, among other things, he forcibly penetrated her vagina with his fingers, Judge Lewis Kaplan wrote last year in the New York case.

Under New York criminal law, rape involves vaginal penetration by a penis. Trump was ultimately found responsible for penetrating Carroll with his hand.

Kaplan said the distinction in this case is largely semantic.

The unanimous jury verdict was almost entirely in her favor, but the only issue on which Ms. Carroll did not prevail was whether she had proven that Mr. Trump had raped her in the narrow, technical sense of a particular section from the New York newspaper. Criminal law, Kaplan added.

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E Jean Carroll won a defamation case against Donald Trump, who was found liable by a jury for sexual abuse (Getty Images)

This section of the law defines rape as being used in criminal proceedings only for vaginal penetration by a penis, while forcible and non-consensual penetration of the vagina or other bodily orifices by fingers, other parts of the body or other items or materials is instead labeled sexual abuse, the judge noted.

The finding that Ms. Carroll failed to prove that she was raped under New York criminal law does not mean that she failed to prove that Mr. Trump raped her, as many people generally understand the word rape, he wrote. Indeed, as the evidence presented at trial made clear, the jury concluded that that is exactly what Mr. Trump did.

The jury implicitly concluded that Trump deliberately and forcibly penetrated Ms. Carroll's vagina with his fingers, causing immediate pain and lasting emotional and psychological harm, according to Kaplan.

Judge overseeing Trump trial rejects key ABC argument

Earlier this year, the federal judge overseeing Trump's lawsuit against the network rejected ABC's arguments that the statements were substantially true and therefore protected by Florida's so-called fair reporting privilege.

She said she was not convinced that such latitude exists in Florida, where the suit was filed.

Florida law exempts media outlets from being technically accurate in their descriptions of legal issues, but that privilege does not protect media outlets when omitting important context makes a report misleading, the judge wrote.

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Donald Trump has launched an aggressive legal campaign against media outlets for their critical coverage, including a $10 billion lawsuit against CBS News (REUTERS)

She argued that a reasonable viewer watching the ABC News segment could have been misled by Stephanopoulos' statements, which did not include the jury's original findings and only briefly referenced the proposed interpretation later by Judge Kaplan.

Judge Kaplan's conclusions have no exclusive effect here, she added.

To win the case, Trump would have had to prove that ABC was reckless about the truth or falsity of the statements Stephanopoulos made, Vance said.

That would be a difficult bar for Trump to reach in this case because of the type of statements that were made and the outcome of the defamation lawsuit against Trump by E. Jean Carroll, she said.

According to Vance, Judge Kaplan's lengthy record could have provided strong evidence to combat Trump's defamation allegations.

The settlement avoids a potentially damaging proof process

Media analysts have suggested that a payment would have avoided potentially embarrassing emails and messages that would have been disclosed during the pre-trial evidence process.

This information could have made ABC look bad or would benefit Trump's lawyers in other ways, according to CNN's Brian Stelter.

He referenced the pretrial discovery process in Dominion Voting Systems' lawsuit against Fox News, which revealed damning messages among Fox's top personalities and executives as the network amplified false conspiracy theories surrounding the 2020 presidential election.

Fox ultimately settled the matter, resulting in the largest settlement ever of its kind, to the tune of $787 million.

The settlement seals the deal and allows ABC (and parent company Disney) to move on, Stelter said.

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