NEW: ABC News is considering parting ways with George Stephanopoulos after they were forced to pay Trump $16M, according to Variety. The outlet reports that insiders say Stephanopoulos is fuming behind the scenes after ABC was forced to make an apology to Trump. "Insiders at ABC aren’t sure if he will stay at the network given the recent turn of events," Variety reported. "Sources say Stephanopoulos has been vocal about how unhappy he has been with the settlement and apology."
ABC and Stephanopoulos apologize to Trump and pay massive amount in defamation fallout
- Thread starter Conil
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NEW: ABC News is considering parting ways with George Stephanopoulos after they were forced to pay Trump $16M, according to Variety. The outlet reports that insiders say Stephanopoulos is fuming behind the scenes after ABC was forced to make an apology to Trump. "Insiders at ABC aren’t sure if he will stay at the network given the recent turn of events," Variety reported. "Sources say Stephanopoulos has been vocal about how unhappy he has been with the settlement and apology."
ABC had a few defences:
- Trump is a public figures and is open to criticism and commentary. While factually inaccurate, a judge did rule that Trump likely sexual abused E. Jean Carrol, and also said that she did not fail to prove Trump raped her by people's understanding of the word.
- For it to be defamation, it would actually have to impact the person's reputation. Considering all the shit Trump has said about "grabbing them by the pussies," or bragging about walking in on nude teenagers at the Miss Teen pageants, this probably didn't move the needle for his reputation. Trump would have a hell of a time showing how this negatively impacted him....since he was re-elected President.
- Unlike the Fox/Dominion case, I doubt there would be any smoking gun emails where the news division was planning to spread lies about Trump.
- It was also a frivolous lawsuit. While I cannot say with 100% certainty ABC would have won, even if they lost the "damages" would probably be very low, and nowhere close to the outrageous amount Trump was demanding. And, while ABC would have been forced to provide emails and other "discovery," Trump would also face re-newed scrutiny over his past behaviour with women. And I bet he wouldn't have enjoyed that.
Good old Mitchy....posting bullshit from the right-wing fever swamp. I can see Stephanopoulos being pissed that ABC settled and apologized, but I doubt that the network would fire him.
- Trump is a public figures and is open to criticism and commentary. While factually inaccurate, a judge did rule that Trump likely sexual abused E. Jean Carrol, and also said that she did not fail to prove Trump raped her by people's understanding of the word.
- For it to be defamation, it would actually have to impact the person's reputation. Considering all the shit Trump has said about "grabbing them by the pussies," or bragging about walking in on nude teenagers at the Miss Teen pageants, this probably didn't move the needle for his reputation. Trump would have a hell of a time showing how this negatively impacted him....since he was re-elected President.
- Unlike the Fox/Dominion case, I doubt there would be any smoking gun emails where the news division was planning to spread lies about Trump.
- It was also a frivolous lawsuit. While I cannot say with 100% certainty ABC would have won, even if they lost the "damages" would probably be very low, and nowhere close to the outrageous amount Trump was demanding. And, while ABC would have been forced to provide emails and other "discovery," Trump would also face re-newed scrutiny over his past behaviour with women. And I bet he wouldn't have enjoyed that.
I would personally say Disney-ABC had a high enough chance of losing......maybe 40-45% probability. I can't say how much Trump would be awarded. As someone here said recently, U.S. juries tend to award large damages particularly when they know the defendant has deep pockets.
Do you think Jean Carroll should have been awarded $85 million for Trump found to be wrongly calling her a liar? She was only awarded $5 million for being sexually abused. So no, we don't know what the jury would do with an award and neither did Disney-ABC. They did the smart thing by paying a settlement.
Trump is a convicted felon, and a sexual predator as these are the actual facts. He has zero moral values and it is all about hypocrisy with his pretence to be like a "saint" to his cult followers.
There is a level of corruption that got him elected and even butler will agree to this video:
- Trump is a public figures and is open to criticism and commentary. While factually inaccurate, a judge did rule that Trump likely sexual abused E. Jean Carrol, and also said that she did not fail to prove Trump raped her by people's understanding of the word.
- For it to be defamation, it would actually have to impact the person's reputation. Considering all the shit Trump has said about "grabbing them by the pussies," or bragging about walking in on nude teenagers at the Miss Teen pageants, this probably didn't move the needle for his reputation. Trump would have a hell of a time showing how this negatively impacted him....since he was re-elected President.
Your problem here is that the Carroll decision is res judicata and Trump was found to have sexually assaulted her. So rape is not that big a jump from sexual assault and the hit to Trump's rep is not particularly large.
- Unlike the Fox/Dominion case, I doubt there would be any smoking gun emails where the news division was planning to spread lies about Trump.
Depends on the defences raised. The internal emails were fair game in the Fox case because they raised the defence of non malicious fair comment - only for it to be shown that the emails proved that Fox had no honest belief in what they were saying online. If ABC said "we overstated it a little, but his behaviour still sucked and his rep is totally gone anyway", why would the internal emails be discoverable?
- It was also a frivolous lawsuit. While I cannot say with 100% certainty ABC would have won, even if they lost the "damages" would probably be very low, and nowhere close to the outrageous amount Trump was demanding. And, while ABC would have been forced to provide emails and other "discovery," Trump would also face re-newed scrutiny over his past behaviour with women. And I bet he wouldn't have enjoyed that.
See all my comments above and in previous posts.
CNN raised the issue of ABC avoiding discovery. I'm sure some other outlets discussed this. You and I don't know what discovery would turn up. Hopefully. ABC News did their own internal discovery.
But hey back to your post, you're arguing with me but this is out in the mediasphere.
“Why would they do this now?” is the question Ken Turkel, a trial attorney at Turkel Cuva Barrios, asked a colleague over the weekend.
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“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 a plaintiff’s claim,” he said. “It begs the question as to why ABC settled before the summary judgment stage.”
Turkel also said “you would have to consider” whether the discovery process unearthed emails or other internal ABC data that damaged the network’s case.
Of course, earlier comments that Disney-ABC just wants to put it behind them and/or they fear retribution from the Admininstration. We don't know their reasoning and likely never will.
