It’s about time that George Stephanopoulos, a former Clinton White House official turned ABC News anchor, faced the consequences of his actions. After spreading falsehoods about the E. Jean Carroll civil case during an interview with U.S. Rep. Nancy Mace (R-SC), Stephanopoulos has deleted his X account. This comes after ABC News settled Trump’s defamation lawsuit against them.
Here is the video 🚨
Trump sued George Stephanopoulos after this interview with Nancy Mace for defamation, and Stephanopoulos is now scheduled for a deposition next week
Raise your hand ✋️ if you hope Trump gets every dime he can outta Stephanopoulos pic.twitter.com/kGZnsHML6G
— @Chicago1Ray 🇺🇸 (@Chicago1Ray) December 13, 2024
During their discussion, Stephanopoulos and Mace tackled the highly controversial civil sexual assault case against Trump in New York City. This case was only possible because New York lawmakers bent over backward to pass a law expanding the statute of limitations for alleged sexual assault crimes. The Adult Survivors Act allowed supposed victims to file civil suits within a certain window, even if the state’s statute of limitations had expired.
This act opened the door for claims like those from E. Jean Carroll — a woman who once called rape “sexy.” She brought a claim against Trump without any solid evidence. Carroll couldn’t even pinpoint when this alleged assault happened in a bustling New York City department store, had no corroborating witnesses, spun a story that and once entertained a hypothetical about having sex with Trump for money.
I just want to remind everyone that in addition to once saying on CNN that "rape is sexy," E. Jean Carroll's accusation against Trump is an exact plot line from a 2012 Law & Order SVU episode.
She claimed that this was a complete coincidence when asked about it.
Her lawyers… pic.twitter.com/pUbsVJRdwG
— Greg Price (@greg_price11) January 25, 2024
Despite the shaky nature of this case, a jury awarded Carroll $83.3 million in damages after finding him liable for “battery.” Most of this penalty came after they decided Trump “defamed” Carroll simply by defending himself against these baseless accusations.
BREAKING: Trump makes first comments after storming out of courtroom in New York, says, "The Courts are totally stacked against me," says Clinton-appointed Judge Kaplan "refuses to allow the Anderson Cooper Interview on CNN (below) of E. Jean Carroll wherein Carroll says, “Rape… pic.twitter.com/1reoVyFiln
— Simon Ateba (@simonateba) January 26, 2024
Stephanopoulos blatantly misrepresented the facts over 10 times in his heated interview with Rep. Mace, falsely asserting that the jury concluded Trump had “raped” Carroll.
Trump rightly filed a defamation lawsuit against ABC News and Stephanopoulos, arguing that they defamed him. Filed in Florida federal court, this lawsuit was allowed to proceed in July after a judge refused ABC’s motion to dismiss it. The judge noted that ABC’s claims were undermined by the civil ruling and emphasized that the case would depend on whether it was substantially true to say a jury found Trump liable for rape when they expressly did not.
As the case moved towards discovery — where Stephanopoulos would have been forced into a lengthy deposition and had to provide access to personal emails — ABC News chose to settle out of court.
According to Saturday’s publicly filed settlement, ABC News will pay $15 million as a charitable contribution to a “presidential foundation and museum to be established by or for the Plaintiff.”
Additionally, they’ve been ordered to pay $1 million to cover Trump’s legal fees and will issue a formal apology.
Just hours after this settlement announcement, X users noticed Stephanopoulos had deleted his X account.