stephanopolous, george aBc

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target press suppression

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an 12 24

NOTE DID NOT RETRACT, SAID REGRET THE STATEMENT

ABC shouldn’t have agreed to settle the defamation case Trump brought against it — handing him $15 million for his presidential “library” (whatever monument that turns out to be) and another million for his legal fees, along with an apology.

It shouldn’t have, first, because the standard for defamation of a public figure requires that a plaintiff prove that the defendant acted with “actual malice” — that is, knew their statement was false or acted with reckless disregard for the truth.

But when on March 10, ABC News anchor George Stephanopoulos asserted that Trump had been found civilly liable for raping writer E. Jean Carroll, there’s zero evidence that Stephanopoulos knew it to be false or was acting with reckless disregard for the truth.

At Trump’s civil trial for defaming Carroll, she testified that he pushed her against a dressing room wall, forced his mouth onto hers, yanked down her tights, and shoved his hand and then his penis inside her while she struggled against him. She said she finally kneed him off her and fled.

In upholding the civil judgment for Carroll and against Trump, U.S. District Judge Lewis Kaplan wrote that the unanimous jury verdict was almost entirely in favor of Carroll, except that the jury concluded she had failed to prove that Trump raped her “within the narrow, technical meaning of a particular section of the New York Penal Law,” which requires vaginal penetration by a penis.

The judge said that jury verdict did notmean that Carroll “failed to prove that Mr. Trump ‘raped’ her as many people commonly understand the word ‘rape.’ Indeed ... the jury found that Mr. Trump in fact did exactly that.”

After a federal judge says that the jury under his purview found that Trump “exactly” raped her, as rape is commonly understood, isn’t it understandable that Stephanopoulos concluded that Trump had been found civilly liable for raping her?

By caving into Trump with this $15 million settlement, ABC didn’t just signal that Trump was correct and Stephanopoulos wrong about whether Trump had in fact raped Carroll.

ABC also signaled that Trump might be correct about a lot of other things he has accused ABC and the rest of the mainstream media of reporting falsely about him — that he lied when he said the 2020 election was stolen from him, for example, or that he lied when he claimed he did not provoke the rioters on January 6, 2021, or when he characterized it as a “peaceful” protest, or said President Biden was behind his prosecutions for trying to reverse the outcome of the 2020 election and making off with classified documents.

ABC’s cave to Trump has even larger implications.

Trump has already used legal threats to intimidate the media and anyone brazen enough to criticize or question him — saying he’ll prosecute journalists and their sources, eliminate funding for public radio and television, subpoena news organizations, revoke networks’ broadcast licenses, and use libel lawsuits.

In the wake of ABC’s surrender, Trump is alreadyexpandinghis threats of legal action against the news media, stating he wants to “straighten out the press.”

On Monday, Trump said that “today or tomorrow” he would sue the Des-Moines Registernewspaper over its final poll of Iowa voters that showed him losing the November election to Vice President Kamala Harris, because he believed the poll “was fraud and it was election interference.”

The Register’sfinal poll before Election Day, conducted by legendary pollster J. Ann Selzer, showed Harris leading Trump 47-44 percent among likely voters in the state. The poll was a bombshell that suggested Harris might pull an upset in a state Trump won in 2016 and 2020.

Trump went on to win the state by a 13-point margin.

“She’s a very good pollster,” Trump said of Selzer. “She knows what she was doing.”

Selzer said she was “mystified” by allegations she was politically motivated or had engaged in election interference. “To suggest without a single shred of evidence that I was in cahoots with somebody, that I was being paid by somebody, it’s hard to pay too much attention to it except that they are accusing me of a crime.”

Trump’s comments about the Registerwere in response to a reporter’s question about whether Trump planned to file more lawsuits following the settlement with ABC, including against social media influencers and other independent figures. Trump responded, “I think you have to do it because they’re very dishonest. We need a great media. We need a fair media.”

Some news organizations are already warning their reporters to prepare: Axios recently told its staff to expect an increased number of lawsuits from the Trump administration, Semafor reported.

At one point, Trump suggested that the U.S. government should be taking up these lawsuits against the news media. “I feel I have to do this. I shouldn’t really be the one to do it. It should have been the Justice Department or somebody else. But I have to do it. It costs a lot of money to do it, but we have to straighten out the press.”

So, why didn’t ABC stand by Stephanopoulos and stand up to Trump?

Media lawyers say it’s rare to see a settlement at this stage of a legal dispute.

After Trump filed the lawsuit accusing Stephanopoulos of “actual malice,” ABC filed a motion to dismiss the case, claiming Trump could not prove actual malice. In July, the judge assigned to the case rejected ABC’s motion and allowed the case to move forward. This subjected the network to the pretrial discovery process, meaning that Stephanopoulos would have his emails and other work materials scrutinized.

The curious thing here is that when media defendants are unsuccessful at the dismissal stage of a trial, they typically move on to preparing for summary judgment and challenge the legal sufficiency of a plaintiff’s claim. Four media lawyers I checked with told me they didn’t understand why ABC would settle before trying for summary judgment, especially when it had such a strong case.

Conservative radio host Erick Erickson, who used to practice law, says ABC and Stephanopoulos wanted to avoid discovery. The “$15 million settlement is not the cost of doing business. It is avoiding discovery.”

I don’t think it’s a cover-up. I know George Stephanopoulos well (we worked together in the Clinton administration), and I have utter confidence in his integrity.

But I don’t have nearly as much confidence in the Walt Disney Company — which, along with its ownership of ABC, owns the Disney Channel, ESPN Wide World of Sports, Freeform, FX, Hulu, Hotstar, and National Geographic. It also owns the properties Disneyland Resort, Walt Disney World Resort, and Disneyland Paris. It owns the studios Pixar Animation, Marvel Studios, Lucasfilm, and 20th Century Studios. It owns the brands Star Wars, The Muppets, Disney Princesses, Pirates of the Caribbean, and Winnie the Pooh. It owns a publishing company, a cruise line, a venture capital firm, and a host of international media networks.

In other words: A very big corporation with its hands in all sorts of places. A very big corporation that worries about all the ways the upcoming Trump administration might hurt its bottom line.

No large American corporation wants to be actively litigating against a sitting president, especially one as vindictive as Trump. A $15 million settlement is chickenfeed compared to the myriad ways Trump could penalize Disney, a $205.25 billion corporation.

We are beginning to see this all over the American political-economic system — giant corporations and hugely wealthy people going out of their way to appease King Trump even in advance of his coronation. They are paying him off to maintain or enlarge their profits.

Which is why Disney’s control over ABC — like Jeff Bezos’s control over The Washington Post, Elon Musk’s control over what we used to call Twitter, and Patrick Soon-Shiong’s control over the Los Angeles Times— and every other wealthy individual’s or big corporation’s control over the news we get, poses such a challenge to American democracy in the age of Trump.

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an 12 24 yikes

On Saturday, December 14, CNN and other media outlets reported that ABC News had reached a settlement in President-elect Donald Trump's defamation lawsuit against the network and "This Week" host George Stephanopoulos. ABC News agreed to pay $15 million to a "presidential foundation and museum" and pay $1 million for Trump's attorney's fees.

This comes at a time when far-right conspiracy theorist Kash Patel, Trump's nominee for FBI director, is drawing a great deal of scrutiny for threatening legal action — either criminal or civil — against journalists.

Patel, during a 2023 appearance on Steve Bannon's "War Room" vodcast, threatened to "come after the people in the media who lied about American citizens, who helped Joe Biden rig presidential elections."

Patel has also threatened anti-Trump Republican Olivia Troye, who served as a national security aide to former Vice President Mike Pence, with a defamation lawsuit.

The New York Times' David Enrich, in an article published on December 15, stresses that ABC News isn't the only media outlet that Trump and his allies have threatened with legal action.

"The legal threats have arrived in various forms," Enrich explains. "One aired on CNN. Another came over the phone. More arrived in letters or e-mails. All of them appeared aimed at intimidating news outlets and others who have criticized or questioned President-elect Donald J. Trump and his nominees to run the Pentagon and FBI. The small flurry of threatened defamation lawsuits is the latest sign that the incoming Trump Administration appears poised to do what it can to crack down on unfavorable media coverage."

Enrich adds, "Before and after the election, Mr. Trump and his allies have discussed subpoenaing news organizations, prosecuting journalists and their sources, revoking networks’ broadcast licenses and eliminating funding for public radio and television. Actual or threatened libel lawsuits are another weapon at their disposal — and they are being deployed even before Mr. Trump moves back into the White House."

Media attorney Elizabeth McNamara, who represented ABC News and Stephanopoulos in the defamation case, didn't discuss the specifics of that case with the Times but did make a general comment.

McNamara warned, "There's been a pattern and practice for the past couple of years of using defamation litigation as a tactic to harass or test the boundary of case law."

Meanwhile, Trump's incoming administration — according to the Washington Post reporters Isaac Arnsdorf and Jeff Stein — is expecting to be the target of lawsuits in 2025 in response to his executive orders.

"Officials in the incoming Trump Administration have an answer for anyone questioning the validity of several policies they plan to implement immediately and unilaterally: Go ahead and sue," Arnsdorf and Stein report in an article published on December 14. "President-elect Donald Trump has long promised to take executive action to withhold birthright citizenship from people born in the United States to parents who are undocumented immigrants, but his advisers now see a court fight as a goal of that effort, rather than an obstacle."

The journalists add, "Similarly, incoming budget officials have said they want to openly defy a 1974 law by refusing to spend money that Congress has authorized, forcing a lawsuit to test the Watergate-era statute's constitutionality. And aides involved in the transition said they'll plow ahead with reviving a policy from late in Trump's first term making it easier to fire tens of thousands of civil servants despite a Biden Administration policy meant to bolster their protections, leaving individual federal workers to fight their own appeals."

Trump's incoming administration, according to Arnsdorf and Stein, "is betting that Democratic lawyers, environmental groups and civil libertarians have less money and appetite for drawn-out court fights than during the earlier days of the anti-Trump 'resistance.'"

But Lee Gelernt, an immigration attorney for the American Civil Liberties Union (ACLU), expects the second Trump Administration to face more than few lawsuits.

Gelernt told the Post, "I suspect they understand they’re going to get sued for just about everything. There are going to be some initial quick fights, but it’s ultimately going to be a marathon."

*Read the New York Times' full article at this link (subscription required) and the Washington Post's full article here (subscription required).

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an 12 24

Trump will have to interrupt his own presidential transition process next week in order to comply with a federal judge's order.

Politico reported Friday that U.S. Magistrate Judge Lisette Reid (of the U.S. District Court for the Southern District of Florida) is ordering both Trump and ABC News anchor George Stephanopoulos to sit for depositions lasting four hours, as part of Trump's ongoing libel lawsuit against the network. In her order Reid specifically noted that Trump being president-elect of the United States won't let him off the hook in complying with the court's orders.

"The parties are reminded that the Court ‘has already granted a lengthy discovery period... and, with Election Day now behind us, there is no reason for any further delay," Reid wrote, adding that the deposition would be in-person.

The lawsuit stems from a claim Stephanopoulos made on-air that Trump raped writer E. Jean Carroll, even though the actual civil verdict the jury handed down in 2023 was for "sexual abuse." Stephanopoulos made the comment while interviewing Rep. Nancy Mace (R-S.C.) in March of 2023.

“You endorsed Donald Trump for president. Judges and two separate juries have found him liable for rape and for defaming the victim of that rape," he said. "How do you square your endorsement of Donald Trump with the testimony that we just saw?”

But last year, Judge Lewis F. Kaplan issued a ruling clarifying that while Trump's $5 million verdict was technically for sexual abuse according to the letter of the law, it was effectively no different than rape as most Americans would use the word.

"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,’" Kaplan said in July of 2023.

Click here to read Politico's report in full.

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Nancy Mace (R-SC) exploded at ABC host George Stephanopoulos on Sunday after he asked why she supported Donald Trump after he was found liable for sexual assault.

During an interview on This Week, Mace became angry and defensive about her support for Trump, who was found to have raped writer E. Jean Carroll. Mace is also a rape survivor.

"And it's a shame that you will never feel, George," Mace charged. "And I'm not going to sit here on your show and be asked a question meant to shame me about another potential rape victim. I'm not going to do that."

"It's actually not about shaming you," Stephanopoulos noted. "It's a question about Donald Trump."

"No, you are shaming me," Mace insisted.

"You've endorsed Donald Trump for president," the ABC host observed. "Donald Trump has been found liable for rape by a jury. Donald Trump has been found liable for defaming the victim of that rape by a jury. It's been affirmed by a judge."

"It was not a criminal court case, number one," Mace fired back. "Number two, I live with shame. And you're asking me a question about my political choices, trying to shame me as a rape victim. And I find it disgusting."

Stephanopoulos pressed Mace several times, and she accused him of shaming her each time.

"And this is why women won't come forward," Mace complained at one point.

"Women won't come forward because they're defamed by those who perpetrate rape," Stephanopoulos remarked.

Watch the video below from ABC.

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an 2 23

ABC host George Stephanopoulos asked Republican House Oversight Chair James Comer (KY) if he would investigate Saudi funds provided to former President Donald Trump's son-in-law Jared Kushner.

The New York Times and The Washington Postreported that Kushner secured over $2 billion, mainly from Sauri Arabia, after Trump left office.

Stephanopoulos wondered if Comer would take time out of his investigation of President Joe Biden's son, Hunter Biden, to probe Kushner's foreign business dealings.

"It's clear that you're going to be looking at Hunter Biden," the host said. "I want to put up a front-page story from the Washington Post detailing Jared Kushner's ties to the Saudis."

"We know that former President Trump has also received funds related to the Saudis' golf tour," he added. "Will you be investigating that as well?"

"I think everything is on the table," Comer replied. "Look, we're investigating Joe Biden. We know that Joe Biden said during the presidential campaign that he had no knowledge of his son's business interests."

Comer argued that the Republican legislative solution would apply to the Trump family if they returned to the White House. He also suggested that Democrats had already investigated Kushner's business dealings as part of the Jan. 6 investigation.

"The difference between Jared Kushner and Hunter Biden is that Jared Kushner actually sat down and was interviewed," Comer said. "So, he's already been investigated."

"Hopefully, the Biden family will be as cooperative as Jared Kushner — with our investigation — as they were with the Jan. 6 investigation and all the other investigations of the Trump administration," he opined.

Stephanopoulos pointed out that Kushner's latest Saudi investments were reported in recent days and had not been investigated.

Watch the video below from ABC or at this link.

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20 hard rt held mccarthy hostage

United States Congressman Scott Perry (R-Pennsylvania) claimed on Sunday's edition of This Week that there is nothing remiss about him serving on House Speaker Kevin McCarthy's (R-California) proposed committee to investigate the Justice Department's probes of the January 6th, 2021 Capitol insurrection, despite the fact that he was a central player in former President Donald Trump's corrupt scheme to remain in power after he lost the 2020 election to President Joe Biden.

According to the now-disbanded House Select Committee that amassed evidence of a vast conspiracy behind the January 6th Capitol attack, Perry was the brains behind a plot to replace then-Attorney General Bill Barr with Jeffrey Clark, who was the acting assistant attorney general for the civil division at DOJ during the Trump presidency. The plan was to fire Barr and install Clark in exchange for his cooperation in the ploy to have fraudulent electors from key swing states – such as Pennsylvania – award the Electoral College votes that Biden won to Trump. This ruse was based on Trump's false insistence that widespread voter fraud cost him the election. There is no evidence that this was the case, yet it remained the foundation of Trump's efforts to overturn the election and thwart the peaceful transfer of power.

In August 2022, the Federal Bureau of Investigation seized Perry's cell phone. White House aide Cassidy Hutchinson told the Select Committee that Perry purportedly sought a presidential pardon from Trump, although he denied having done so.

Regardless, however, these facts prompted ABC News moderator George Stephanopoulos to grill Perry on the ethics of his participating in congressional investigations of the agencies with which he is entangled.

"The speaker has also reportedly said that he's going to appoint a church-style committee to investigate the investigations. Since you’re part of the investigation by the Justice Department, will you – will you pledge not to serve on that committee?" Stephanopoulos asked the GOP lawmaker.

Perry objected to the question itself:

Well, why should I be limited – why should anybody be limited just because someone has made an accusation? Everybody in America is innocent until proven otherwise. And I would say this, the American people are really, really tired of the persecution and the instruments of federal power being used against them. We're talking aboutparents that go to school board meetings for the schools that they pay for with their taxes and having the temerity to question the curriculum, and then they're put on, you know, the red-flagged, or they’re flagged by the Department of Justice and the FBI for attending a meeting. That's not what America is supposed to be about. That sounds like some tin horn third-world dictatorship. Sure, we're going to investigate and we need to. We need to make sure that these agencies aren't running amuck and aren’t out of control which clearly they are.

Stephanopoulos pressed Perry a second time:

Doesn't that pose a conflict to you since you’re also part of the investigation?

Again, Perry deflected:

So, should everybody in Congress that disagrees with somebody be barred from doing the oversight and investigative powers that Congress has? That's our charge. And again, that's appropriate for every single member regardless of what accusations are made. I get accused of all kinds of things every single day, as does every member that serves in the public eye. But that doesn't stop you from doing your job. It is our duty and it is my duty.

Watch below or at this link.

mma1120

No pushback when Trump adviser suggests that counting votes after election night is stealing the election

Trump adviser Jason Miller appeared on ABC's This Week. Talking with George Stephanopoulos, Miller claimed that Donald Trump will be ahead on election night but that Democrats will try to "steal" the election by counting ballots after that. The fact is that ballots are usually counted for many days and that mail-in ballots in many cases will be delayed in the count due to Republican-led state legislatures. Stephanopoulos, however, did not push back on the claim at all.

Over on Fox News Sunday, Chris Wallace did not push back either when guest Corey Lewandowski said that Trump would be winning by such margins on election night that "there will be no need to continue to count" in the ensuing days.

9/20 town hall fail ~ ingraham "ambush"

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ok to take foreign oppo?

ABC confronts a furious Trump over false claims of ‘no obstruction’ as he says Constitution lets him ‘do whatever I want’

Elizabeth Preza

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