ABC News has agreed to pay $15m (£12m) to US President-elect Donald Trump to settle a defamation lawsuit after its star anchor falsely said he had been found “liable for rape”.

George Stephanopoulos made the defamatory statements repeatedly during an interview on 10 March this year when he challenged a congresswoman about her support for Trump.

A jury in a civil case last year determined Trump was liable for “sexual abuse”, which has a specific definition under New York law.

As part of Saturday’s settlement, ABC will also publish a statement expressing its “regret” for the statements by Stephanopoulos.

The network also agreed to pay $1m towards Trump’s legal fees.

In 2023, a New York civil court found Trump sexually abused E Jean Carroll in a dressing room at a department store in 1996.

Judge Lewis Kaplan said the jury’s conclusion was that Ms Carroll had failed to prove that Trump raped her “within the narrow, technical meaning of a particular section of the New York Penal Law”.

Kaplan noted that the definition of rape was “far narrower” than how rape is defined in common modern parlance, in some dictionaries and in criminal statutes elsewhere.

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