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As Twitchy reported earlier, Donald Trump and ABC’s George Stephanopoulos were supposed to sit for a four-hour deposition this week in Trump’s claim against the network and Stephanopoulos, who had repeatedly said that Trump had been held liable for the rape of E. Jean Carroll. That deposition isn’t going to happen, because ABC has settled with Trump for the sum of $15 million. Oh, and a public apology, which so far has consisted of a note at the bottom of a web page expressing the network’s “regret.” We want our on-air apology.

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As we’ve also reported, ABC’s “bending the knee” to Trump isn’t sitting well with people like Bill Kristol and Marc Elias, who think the settlement sets a dangerous precedent — that networks will have to check their facts before spouting lies about Trump. Look at how often ABC’s “The View” has had to read “please don’t sue us” statements on-air.

Maya Wiley is the president and CEO of the Leadership Conference on Civil and Human Rights, and she contends that ABC News had a very strong defense against the Trump defamation claim — so strong that they chose to settle rather than go to court.

We still have a lot of questions about “what Trump did to E. Jean Carroll.” The woman is kind of a nut.

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It’s very possible Stephanopoulos didn’t know he was being reckless. Working for ABC News doesn’t necessitate that you have the facts. And just for the record, Wiley has “former MSNBC” in her X bio.

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A very similar incident was talked about on “Law & Order: Special Victims Unit” in 2012.

The reputational damage is going to cost ABC more than $15 million.

But they chose to settle, right before Stephanopoulos was scheduled to sit for a deposition in the case.

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Semantics.

Maybe Wiley should have represented Carroll in court since she’s such a legal genius. 

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