It certainly looked that way when ABC News agreed last week to settle Trump’s defamation lawsuit for $15 million (plus $1 million for Trump’s attorney fees). But not so fast.
At issue was whether ABC journalist George Stephanopoulis defamed him by insisting, during a televised interview with firebrand GOP Rep. Nancy Mace, that “judges and two separate juries have found him liable for rape, and for defaming the victim of that rape.”
The part about defaming the victim, E. Jean Carroll, isn’t disputed. Trump was found civilly liable for defaming Carroll. He also was found liable for sexually assaulting her. The issue is over the meaning of the word “rape.”
According to the adjudicated factual findings, Trump forcibly inserted his fingers, not his penis, into Carroll’s private parts. Under federal law, and in popular vernacular, that constitutes “rape.”
But New York law distinguished between penile and digital penetration, defining the first as “rape” and the second as “sexual abuse.” That law has since been amended to remove this distinction.
Based on this extremely arcane, tenuous, trivial, and no longer existing legal technicality, Trump’s lawyers argued in court their client sexually abused, not raped, Carroll which made Stephanopoulis’s on-air comments false and defamatory.
Thus, it’s very clear the ABC News settlement doesn’t exonerate Trump of wrongdoing (read story here). The civil verdict in Carroll’s favor still stands, so it’s fair to call him a sexual abuser, if not a “rapist.”
What’s more, Trump only gets the $1 million of attorney fees, which merely reimburses his legal expenses. (Or, more likely, a portion of them.) Under the settlement, the $15 million goes to the Trump Presidential Library, not into his pocket. In other words, Trump himself gains nothing from this lawsuit. He won’t get a penny for being “defamed” by Stephanopoulis and ABC News.
Was Trump wronged by a false and defamatory remark by a journalist about him? You can make up your own mind about that. I already have.
Related story: To a former federal prosecutor, the quick and large settlement smells fishy, and she wonders if the network is trying to buy favor with Trump. Read story here.