IS ABC NEWS’ $15 MILLION TRUMP DEFAMATION SETTLEMENT A PREVIEW OF WHAT’S TO COME?

by | Dec 21, 2024 | ABC NEWS, The Moderate Voice

When Donald Trump sued ABC News over defamation it seemed like it would be one more Trump lawsuit that made a lot of noise and wouldn’t go anywhere. And if you had to take bets, basing it on previous media behavior, you’d bet on it going to trial, and appeals.

So there were shockwaves when – days before the slated deposition of Trump and ABC News anchor George Stephanopoulos — ABC announced it was settling the lawsuit and that it would pay $15 million to the Donald Trump library.

ABC News is set to pay $15 million to settle a defamation lawsuit brought by Donald J. Trump.

The agreement was a significant concession by a major news organization and a rare victory for a media-bashing politician whose previous litigation efforts against news outlets have often ended in defeat.

Under the terms of a settlement revealed on Saturday, ABC News will donate the $15 million to Mr. Trump’s future presidential foundation and museum. The network and its star anchor, George Stephanopoulos, also published a statement saying they “regret” remarks made about Mr. Trump during a televised interview in March.

ABC News, which is owned by the Walt Disney Company, will pay Mr. Trump an additional $1 million for his legal fees.

The outcome is an unusual win for Mr. Trump, who has frequently sued news organizations for defamation and frequently lost, including in litigation against CNN, The New York Times and The Washington Post.

Several experts in media law said they believed that ABC News could have continued to fight, given the high threshold required by the courts for a public figure like Mr. Trump to prove defamation. A plaintiff must not only show that a news outlet published false information, but that it did so knowing that the information was false or with substantial doubts about its accuracy.

“Major news organizations have often been very leery of settlements in defamation suits brought by public officials and public figures, both because they fear the dangerous pattern of doing so and because they have the full weight of the First Amendment on their side,” said RonNell Andersen Jones, a professor of law at the University of Utah.

“What we might be seeing here is an attitudinal shift,” she added. “Compared to the mainstream American press of a decade ago, today’s press is far less financially robust, far more politically threatened, and exponentially less confident that a given jury will value press freedom, rather than embrace a vilification of it.”

In other words: another norm has bitten the dust.

ABC News did not elaborate on Saturday about its precise reasons for settling. “We are pleased that the parties have reached an agreement to dismiss the lawsuit on the terms in the court filing,” a network spokeswoman said. A lawyer for Mr. Trump declined to comment on the agreement.

Mr. Trump sued ABC and Mr. Stephanopoulos in March, after the anchor asked Representative Nancy Mace, Republican of South Carolina, who has spoken publicly about being raped as a teenager, why she had continued to support Mr. Trump after he was found “liable for rape” in a 2023 civil case in Manhattan.

In that case, a federal jury found Mr. Trump liable for sexually abusing and defaming the writer E. Jean Carroll, but it did not find him liable for rape. Still, the judge who oversaw the proceeding later clarified that because of New York’s narrow legal definition of rape, the jury’s verdict did not mean that Ms. Carroll had “failed to prove that Mr. Trump ‘raped’ her as many people commonly understand the word ‘rape.’”

Why did ABC News settle? There are all kinds of theories:

  • Stephanopoulos would have fought on but corporate bigwigs wanted to settle it ASAP.
  • ABC News’ corporate officials were playing follow-the-leader as other big corporations are rushing to Trump to curry his favor and donate to big bucks to his inauguration.
  • ABC officials might have felt that if the case was pursued and went all the way up to the Supreme Court ABC would not have stood a chance given the MAGA makeup of much of the court.
  • ABC had a lingering fear that the Trump administration could go after its broadcast license.
  • ABC officials felt that in the end the case would not one that they could win and that Stephanopoulos had indeed stepped in it.

    • Indeed, Trump has long talked about defamation laws and the press and it’s likely more defamation suits will come. David Enrich in The New York Times:

    The legal threats have arrived in various forms. One aired on CNN. Another came over the phone. More arrived in letters or emails.

    All of them appeared aimed at intimidating news outlets and others who have criticized or questioned President-elect Donald J. Trump and his nominees to run the Pentagon and F.B.I.

    The small flurry of threatened defamation lawsuits is the latest sign that the incoming Trump administration appears poised to do what it can to crack down on unfavorable media coverage. Before and after the election, Mr. Trump and his allies have discussed subpoenaing news organizations, prosecuting journalists and their sources, revoking networks’ broadcast licenses and eliminating funding for public radio and television.

    Actual or threatened libel lawsuits are another weapon at their disposal — and they are being deployed even before Mr. Trump moves back into the White House.

    It is notoriously difficult for public figures like Mr. Trump to win defamation lawsuits. Under longstanding Supreme Court precedent — which Mr. Trump and some of his allies want to see weakened or overturned — plaintiffs must prove that a publisher knew a defamatory statement was false or acted with reckless disregard for its accuracy.

    But that high bar has not stopped a wide range of politicians, business leaders and others from threatening or filing such suits — a strategy that often seems tailored to cause news outlets and individuals to rein in aggressive coverage of the public figures.

    The strategy can pay other dividends as well.

    On Saturday, ABC News said it had agreed to give $15 million to Mr. Trump’s future presidential foundation and museum to settle a defamation suit that Mr. Trump filed against the network and one of its anchors, George Stephanopoulos. Mr. Trump sued in March after Mr. Stephanopoulos inaccurately said the former president had been found “liable for rape” in a civil trial in New York, though the judge in the case later noted that the state has a narrow legal definition of rape. In fact, Mr. Trump had been found liable for sexual abuse.

    The settlement followed months of attacks by Mr. Trump and his allies on ABC News, with the once and future president going so far as to say that the network should lose its federal broadcast license.

    The deal set off criticism of ABC News by those who perceived the network as needlessly bowing down to Mr. Trump. And it led some legal and media experts to wonder whether the outcome would embolden Mr. Trump and others to intensify their assault on the media, at a moment when many news organizations are struggling with declining public trust and deteriorating finances.

    Even before the settlement was reached, Elizabeth McNamara, a prominent media lawyer, said she expected that the trend “is only going to increase,” given the political environment.

    [,,,]Over the past several weeks, lawyers for Mr. Trump and two of his most high-profile nominees — Pete Hegseth, the potential defense secretary, and Kash Patel, whom Mr. Trump has picked to run the F.B.I. — warned journalists and others of defamation lawsuits for what they had said or written.

    Mr. Hegseth, until recently a Fox News host, was accused of sexual assault in 2017. While he denies the allegation, he struck a confidential settlement with his accuser.

    In an interview on CNN this month, Mr. Hegseth’s lawyer, Timothy Parlatore, said the woman was free to speak publicly. But, he warned, “if she repeats these false statements, then she will be subject to a defamation lawsuit.”

    Newsweek reports that ABC is receiving backlash from Democrats and Republicans:

    “People are not going to forget what ABC did,” the Republicans Against Trump X, formerly Twitter, account said.

    Conservative political scientist Norman Jay Ornstein added: “Add ABC to the basket of cowards in our media.”

    Democratic attorney Marc Elias wrote: “Knee bent. Ring kissed. Another legacy news outlet chooses obedience.”

    Reporter Oliver Willis also chimed in, writing on Threads: “This is actually how democracy dies.”

    Tech reporter Matt Novak said: “Not good for the rest of us when you do this s***, ABC.”

    “But that’s probably half the point from management’s perspective,” he added Saturday.

    “People are not going to forget what ABC did,” the Republicans Against Trump X, formerly Twitter, account said.

    Conservative political scientist Norman Jay Ornstein added: “Add ABC to the basket of cowards in our media.”

    Democratic attorney Marc Elias wrote: “Knee bent. Ring kissed. Another legacy news outlet chooses obedience.”

    Reporter Oliver Willis also chimed in, writing on Threads: “This is actually how democracy dies.”

    Tech reporter Matt Novak said: “Not good for the rest of us when you do this s***, ABC.”

    “But that’s probably half the point from management’s perspective,” he added Saturday.

    Legal experts also criticized the broadcaster for settling the lawsuit before depositions were due to take place.

    Former prosecutor Joyce Vance said: “I’m old enough to remember—and to have worked on—cases where newspapers vigorously defended themselves against defamation cases instead of folding before the defendant was even deposed.”

    “That, by the way, includes defamation cases brought by candidates for the presidency,” she then added.

    Legal analyst Allison Gill, known online as Mueller, She Wrote, said: “This is so gross.”

    “And it keeps happening. Why not depose him?” she asked. “The case wouldn’t cost more than $15M and ABC would have won if they bothered fighting.”

    The analyst then added, “I don’t get it.”

    Human rights lawyer Qasim Rashid said: “This is the cowardice of legacy media out to make profit, rather than uphold principle. The ongoing failure of legacy media is a stark reminder that independent and independently funded voices are now more critical than ever before.”

    It’s another sign of how easy norms are shattered under Donald Trump – and perhaps another display of the weakness of American democracy’s highly touted “guardrails.”

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