The topic here is a defamation suit Donald Trump filed against ABC News last March. It's one of the zillions that Trump files regularly and loses just as regularly. But for some reason, only a few days before Trump would have been forced to sit through a damaging deposition, ABC caved and agreed to pay Trump $15 million plus $1 million in legal fees.
This might make sense if ABC had a disastrously weak case and just needed to pull the plug. But they didn't. Trump had sued over an interview George Stephanopoulos did with Rep. Nancy Mace where he repeatedly asked how she could support a man who had been found "liable for rape" in the E. Jean Carroll case. Trump protested that the jury found him liable only for sexual abuse, but the judge later clarified this:
The label “rape” as used in criminal prosecutions in New York applies only to vaginal penetration by a penis. Forcible, unconsented-to penetration of the vagina or of other bodily orifices by fingers, other body parts, or other articles or materials is not called “rape” under the New York Penal Law. It instead is labeled “sexual abuse.”
....[This] definition of rape in the New York Penal Law is far narrower than the meaning of “rape” in common modern parlance.... The finding that Ms. Carroll failed to prove that she was “raped” within the meaning of the New York Penal Law does not mean that she failed to prove that Mr. Trump “raped” her as many people commonly understand the word “rape.” Indeed, as the evidence at trial recounted below makes clear, the jury found that Mr. Trump in fact did exactly that.... The proof convincingly established, and the jury implicitly found, that Mr. Trump
deliberately and forcibly penetrated Ms. Carroll’s vagina with his fingers, causing immediate pain and long lasting emotional and psychological harm.
Sorry for the long excerpt, but I wanted to provide judge's full context. In short: Trump was not liable for rape under New York's stringent legal requirements, but he did rape Carroll as the term is commonly understood in modern usage.
It doesn't matter if the judge was right about this. It's what he wrote in an "official public proceeding," which means it's privileged and can be freely quoted as long as the source is noted. Stephanopoulos would have argued he did exactly that when he explicitly said, "the judge affirmed that it was rape."
Would he have prevailed? That's impossible to say, but he sure seems to have a strong case. The jury found that Trump had jammed his fingers into Carroll's vagina; a judge said that met the common definition of rape; and Stephanopoulos then cited the judge.
So why did ABC roll over with barely an effort to defend itself? It's a good question. It might have to do with the fact that ABC is owned by Disney, which recently fought with Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis for over a year and eventually paid a stiff price. Maybe they weren't up for another mud wrestling bout with the MAGA crowd.
But one way or the other, their decision seems to have been based on fear, not legal weakness. They were afraid of the retribution Trump might be able to mete out as president. And in this they aren't alone. Trump's revenge-based MO has proven remarkably effective. It's not clear what it will get him in the long run, but in the short run it's already earned him groveling fealty from politicians, foreign leaders, corporate CEOs, and now a major media outlet. This is unique—and uniquely chilling—in American presidential history.
And anyway, how big a deal is a $15 million contribution settlement? For Disney—net profit in 2024: $7.6 billion—it's barely noticeable. Best to just stay safe and write the check.
More evidence that the US government is becoming the enemy. Liberal policies and politics are a dead end. Advocacy is a waste of time and, eventually, dangerous.
This is a demonstration of how the oppression will work going forward. Sometimes subtle, other times not so much. So sure, stay safe and write the check. And then stop talking about it altogether.
And stop doing this! 😂 dumbass.
A Washington, D.C.-area restaurant server has been fired after she spoke out about possibly refusing service to incoming Trump administration officials. “I personally would refuse to serve any person in office who I know of as being a sex trafficker or trying to deport millions of people,” Suzannah Van Rooy, a server at Beuchert’s Saloon on Capitol Hill, told the Washingtonian this week. “It’s not, ‘Oh, we hate Republicans.’ It’s that this person has moral convictions that are strongly opposed to mine, and I don’t feel comfortable serving them.”
Don’t talk to the media. Dumbass.
I haven't been paying much attention since the election. Who am I missing?
Compromised Legacy Media Outfit List:
- Washington Post
- New York Times
- LA Times
- ABC
Propaganda Mills:
- Fox
- Sinclair
- OAN
- Newsmax
Zuckerberg (Meta) and Bezos are making million-dollar contributions to Trump's inaugural fund. (Sam Altman too.) Musk contributed at least $277 million to help Trump get elected. They are owners of big media outlets, in addition to being tech billionaires.
If a news reporter contributes $25 to a political campaign, it's a scandal. What do you call it when the owners contribute many millions?
according to our own mf & atticus, & in agreement with the citizens united decision, that's free speech.
Ah, Juston, your usual politesse.
Disney's ABC can and should preface every reference to Co-President-elect Trump's HQ as "Trump's Disney-princess-palace, Mar-a-Lago."
https://s.hdnux.com/photos/44/13/45/9484617/4/1200x0.jpg
WaPo, LAT, ABC. Just of a few of the major news organizations that have waived the white flag for our new fascist overlords without even putting up a fight.
News orgs' protection against libel is strong in the United States. The NYT Co. v Sullivan "decision held that if a plaintiff in a defamation lawsuit is a public official or candidate for public office, then not only must they prove the normal elements of defamation—publication of a false defamatory statement to a third party—they must also prove that the statement was made with 'actual malice,' meaning the defendant either knew the statement was false or recklessly disregarded whether it might be false."
Normally, news organizations fight defamation suits with great vigor. Free speech is their lifeblood, and for ABC to give up so easily is a disturbing sign. Fascists and authoritarians can only succeed when they control the media, and this settlement is a clear signal that media will not stand their ground. They are easily cowed.
MSNBC, like it or not, has been the most prominent anti-Trump news outlet over the past eight years. It's for sale now. Don't expect it to ever be the same. Musk has even joked about buying it.
We didn't arrive here without extraordinary media complicity. The extraordinary courage it will take to get us out is nowhere to be seen. We've got a long, long winter ahead of us.
Exactly this. The point of bending the knee is to make a bit of a spectacle of it so that everybody notices.
If ABC was looking for the most obvious way to signal surrender and obedience, this was it.
Donald Trump and his supporters claim that MSNBC is for sale, but they are lying. Comcast is not looking to sell MSNBC. It is probably true that MSNBC could be purchased for a sufficiently large sum, but that has always been the case.
+1
if I'm George I quit with a nice blast on the way out of my former employer.
+10
if I'm George I quit with a nice blast on the way out of my former employer.
It's easy for you to say when it's not your $17 million/year salary on the line. And sure, part of me wants to judge him for not saying "take this job and shove it." But part of me thinks it's not the employee's responsibility to suffer financial and career setbacks when it is the employer who is at fault (which is the case here).
Who knows, maybe when they've paid him all they owe him, he'll leave for another gig, and blast ABC/Disney (and Trump) on his way out.
Everybody who is anybody will eventually line up to suck Trump’s dick and lick his asshole, and the sight will be just as disgusting as it looks reading it right here.
The only thing for regular people to do is refuse to watch. Until they install televisions in every room of every home and building in America, 1984-style, you can still refuse to watch all these rich corporate whores debase themselves.
kill the ratings & the body will die.
For me I want to examine this situation removed from Trump.
Meaning, if CBS said that Doug Emhoff was convicted of sexual assault (false) versus a statement that Emhoff was accused of the same act (true), would I see this differently? The answer is yes, because I doubt CBS would see Harris as a political risk: in contrast, Trump likes revenge...
More fundamentally, "accused of" is a vast gap away from having been found at trial ... The judge in Trump's trial actually expressly said that in ordinary parlance the jury had found Trump to have committed the act he was accused of.
Could be they just didn't want to fight in a rigged match. This case may have been a loser in front of a Trump judge and a Florida jury.
In that case you appeal.
Sure. But it's Trump judges all the way up. So.
And, as Kevin points out, $15 million is chump change for ABC News. I see this as just picking your battles, and this one wasn't worth the effort. They would have probably run up more that $15 million in legal fees.
But probably they also would have gained more than $15 million in revenue from news coverage of a juicy lawsuit about them standing up to The President on a matter of First Amendment Importance which, as a side benefit, allows them to talk endlessly about Trump, verdicts, and sexual assault.
Think of the eyeballs! Think of the ratings! ABC apparently doesn't want that kind of attention.
But probably they also would have gained more than $15 million in revenue from news coverage of a juicy lawsuit
Are you an advertising analyst who is intimately familiar with how the economics of this would shake out?
My guess is if fighting in court were the more profitable course of action, Disney would have gone that route. But I doubt it was. Who knows the myriad ways our new dictator could have targeted them? And the news division of ABC would likely have faced boycotts from Republicans, and their advertisers might well have come under MAGA pressure.
To be sure this is a disgustingly pusillanimous response from the perspective of journalism, but that's what you get when corporate bean counters own news assets. Fighting for the First Amendment means nothing to these assholes.
The general rule is to reward behavior you want to encourage. Want to encourage a bully? Give him what he wants. Then, having learned that bullying works on you, he'll bully you more — and look around for other compliant victims.
Exactly.
And right on cue, here's the top story at the moment at the NYT online.
Trump and His Picks Threaten More Lawsuits Over Critical Coverage
The small flurry of threatened defamation suits is the latest sign that the incoming Trump administration appears poised to do what it can to crack down on unfavorable media coverage.
https://www.nytimes.com/2024/12/15/business/media/trump-defamation-lawsuit-abc-hegseth-cnn.html?unlocked_article_code=1.hk4.lpCv.rinNayzD89lz&smid=url-share
+1
He ain't lying.
My question is: Why doesn't Stepanopoulos resign? ABC needs him more than he needs ABC. What makes him collaborate in this charade?
Everybody has their price. His is about $15 million a year.
The irony here is that E Jean Carroll won the civil lawsuit and later Trump was found guilty of defamation but Ms Carroll has yet to see a dime but Trump has already been paid his $15 million for someone saying it happened. I guess the lesson here is we had all better shut up.
Apparently, the $15 million goes to a "charitable contribution," i.e., a tax-deductible contribution. So ABC doesn't pay this, taxpayers do. I'm guessing the $1 million to Trump's attorney is a business expense for ABC.
No wonder they settled. No damage to their bottom line. I can't even punish them by boycotting ABC because I never watched them anyway.
Taxpayers pay part of a tax deductible charitable contribution, a part equal to the tax rate applicable to the tax deductible amount. As I recall, corporate tax rates are quite low, which means the taxpayers' contribution is quite low.
I’m pretty sure this is how the Mafia works…
t-Rump is rolling in the dough from all of his frightened contributors. I can only hope he suffocates in it and it all goes up in flames, with him on it.
Knowing Trump, this ass kissing from ABC will be ignored and he'll still go after them at the first opportunity. I hope when he does he burns ABC to the ground. Until these idiots learn the lesson that you don't make deals with the devil they deserve every bit of misery Trump heaps on them.
Law can be distressingly specific and pedantic. Are juries tasked with reaching verdicts based on common definitions, or legal ones? Would this be different if Stephanopoulos kept saying "liable for what you and I would consider rape" rather than "liable for rape?"
The decision of the judge (back in July) refusing to dismiss the case can be found here.
A key paragraph:
"Here, of course, New York has opted to separate out a crime of rape; and Stephanopoulos’s statements dealt not with the public’s usage of that term, but the jury’s consideration of it during a formal legal proceeding. Thus, while Defendants’ cited cases are compelling, they are not directly responsive to the issue of whether it is substantially true to say a jury (or juries) found Plaintiff liable for rape by a jury despite the jury’s verdict expressly finding he was not liable for rape under New York Penal Law."
If it had gone to trial, a just outcome would have been a finding in Trump's favor, followed by the jury awarding damages of $1 as a fair assessment of the harm to Trump's reputation.
IANAL, but I have read many times that defamation of a public figure is difficult to prove, especially against journalists. The elements of the offense in that case must include actual malice, not merely negligence. Also, in any case, actual harm must be shown. But a plurality of Americans thought TFG’s morals good enough for the White House …
Here’s a summary in layman’s language: https://www.pbs.org/standards/media-law-101/defamation/
Being factually in error is not a sufficient condition to be found liable.
Gotta admit though, lawfare works. Especially in a country where cash is king, and in few hands.
trape - n, the insertion of fingers into a woman's vagina without her consent.
Origin: 2024 reaction to lawsuit where Trump claimed defamation by reporters saying he raped Elizabeth Jean Carroll
see also: Access Hollywood tape uproar
Lame Stream Media.
This is such a bizarre story.
But its FULL of legal twists and turns, and Drum's story, in turn, is full of quotation marks.
Trump raped Carroll, in my mind. As a father of 3 adult females I believe that ANY unwanted sexual advances which are then force upon a female can, and often do result in trauma, both physical and emotional. The fact that it include insertion of a penis is immaterial to me. This was an unwanted sexual advance on a female.
But we have become a nation of armchair lawyers and republican supporters so this outcome was bound to happen eventually.
When we think about this from a money perspective it was a smart move by ABC. Trump would have to appeal any decision that he lost in NY. He would have to file multiple appeals to keep getting this case heard by other judges - eventually he would have found someone that agrees with him.
ABC would have had to defend this with a phalanx of lawyers and the costs would probably have exceeded $15M and Trumps legal costs would have really skyrocketed, as well. They did well to cut bait on this because (unfortunately) in a very short period of time the voting public will forget about this.
I personally don't agree with what ABC did, but, I can also say that Trump has failed to get a bump in public opinion about it either and that is all he worries about.
Trump hasn't paid EJ Carrol yet, and probably won't. He has stiffed multiple metro area police departments out of security monies owed for his rallies. He has bankrupted multiple businesses. His comeuppance will, or may be swift. I've said this before and I will say it again - Trump will die in office. Before or after his comeuppance makes no difference to me.
This settlement is a dirty settlement, but ABC did in fact cut their losses early - and in doing so took away a story Trump could have used about being unfairly prosecuted. We will forget this by next month
I expect three goals will dominate Trump's next presidency:
1. A pathetic needy search for recognition as a Great President, probably the GOAT, and the public adoration that ought to go with it;
2. A rapacious never-ending quest to monetise his position, driven by his realisation that compared to Co-President Musk, he's a pauper;
3. A program to install a puppet as a successor who will allow Trump to continue to be de facto president, probably with a title such as "President Emeritus".
Moreover his failure to achieve goal #1 will spur him on in the other two, with the mentality that those who don't love him deserve to pay and pay.
Re: 1. Yes, I think he was disappointed that the Abraham Accords didn’t get him the Nobel Peace Prize. People just didn’t seem to consider a peace treaty between nations that weren’t at war, nor had any intent to engage in one, as the big deal he thought it was.
3. Ah, the Medvedev play. I don’t know how this could be worked in the US — the President’s powers are so institutionalized. Blackmail the puppet? Even personal secrets that would ruin the career of a Democrat don’t faze Republicans. In any case, Trump would be 82 a few months into the puppet’s term — a fall down stairs could be fatal at that age ….
"I'll make you president by getting MAGA Republicans to vote for you with a promise I'll still be in the White House 'mentoring' you. You will have full access to Mar-a-Lago and Bedminster and all my other properties as if you were a member of the family. I will supplement your salary with generous benefits such as shares in real estate deals and Trump Media.
"In return, you will nominate the people I recommend for Treasury, Attorney General, FBI Director and federal judges. You will follow my advice on any matter in which I take an interest. If you break our agreement after you have been elected, all those benefits will be withdrawn immediately and my followers will make sure you do not win re-election in 2032."
I think someone like Vance would go for a deal like that, especially when there'd be a good chance Trump would die during its life, leaving him in sole control.
From Kevin's old blogging grounds: https://www.motherjones.com/politics/2024/12/why-the-abc-news-settlement-with-trump-is-complicated/
This is just the first teaser down payment on the corporate shakedowns. Just think of how many trump-family fronts these people can dream up! Just think of how much they can get these corporate benefactors to "voluntarily" pony up across them all in order to avoid protracted agency investigations and fines! Just think how finely they can tailor "recommended contribution" amounts with the IRS records they'll have at hand!
Before long I expect that much of corporate America will look back with fond nostalgia for the light hand and profit-enhancing stewardship of Lina Khan and her colleagues.
How easy it is for a liberal democracy to become illiberal, embracing an autocratic-leaning strongman. One after another, they all bow down to sheer power.
But don't you worry! They're just waiting for a Democrat to pounce on, once again, to prove that their ethical and moral principles are strong.