Margaret Sullivan, the last public ombudsman for The New York Times, wrote on her blog that ABC News was wrong to settle with Trump for $15 million for “defaming” him. On television, ABC’s George Stefanopolous said that Trump had been found liable for raping E. Jean Carroll. Trump said that was wrong and malicious because he had been found guilty of “sexual assault,” not rape.

She points out that when she was chief editor of The Buffalo News, the paper had a longstanding policy of fighting every claim of defamation or libel. They did so to discourage future lawsuits and send a message: we will vigorously oppose lawsuits. If you sue, prepare for a long battle.

Trump’s lawyers claimed that Stephanopoulos was wrong to say that Trump was found guilty of rape and that he had defamed Trump. ABC settled before trial and agreed to pay $15 million for the future Trump Presidential Library and $1 million for Trump’s legal fees.

Media experts were stunned. Not only did ABC abandon its First Amendment defense, but it abandoned a viable claim that Stephanopooulos was right to use the language he did.

Judge Lewis Kaplan, who presided over the Carroll defamation case, said:

“The finding Ms. Carroll failed to prove she was ‘raped’ within the meaning of the N.Y. Penal Law does not mean she failed to prove Mr. Trump ‘raped’ her as many people commonly understand the word ‘rape’. Indeed, as the evidence at trial… makes clear, the jury found Mr. Trump in fact did exactly that.”

By settling–and at such a hefty price–ABC has encouraged Trump and other politicians to continue to sue journalists and their employers.

Sullivan believes ABC might well have won if they continued to fight:

ABC News should never have caved. They might well have prevailed if they had hung in there. The legal bar is very high for libeling a public figure, and Trump is the ultimate public figure. Instead, this outcome encourages Trump in his attacks on the press — and he needs no encouragement. 

As one law professor told the Times, what ABC News did was very unusual. News organizations generally don’t settle “because they fear the dangerous pattern of doing so and because they have the full weight of the First Amendment on their side.”

Why did ABC News throw in the towel? It‘s hard to know for sure, but gets easier if you are aware that the news organizations is owned by Disney, a huge corporation with a lot of turf to protect. As the Times reported, the Disney executive who oversees ABC News had dinner with Trump’s top aide, Susan Wiles, just days before the settlement, as “part of a visit by several ABC News executives to Florida to meet with Mr. Trump’s transition team.”

Was this settlement, which includes ABC’s public expressions of regret, a simple case of kissing the ring? It sure looks that way. Trump has sworn to get revenge on his enemies and he values, above all, loyalty and kowtowing. 

But loyalty and kowtowing isn’t the job of the press, which is supposed to represent the public in holding powerful people and institutions accountable.

After his victory, Trump threatened to sue the Des Moines Register for posting a poll before the election that showed Biden beating him in Iowa. He also threatened to sue Bob Woodward, “60 minutes,” and the Pulitzer Prizes. This is the mischief that ABC News unleashed.

Last night Trump’s lawyers sued the Des Moines Register for publishing Ann Seltzer’s poll. The implications are frightening. The media publishes polls frequently during campaigns. They may be right, they may be wrong. If they are wrong, will candidates sue them for “election interference”? How did Trump suffer any damages by publication of that poll? He won Iowa by 13 points.

Win or lose, Trump has a strategy: to strike fear in the hearts of every journalist who dares to write critically about him.

Be sure to read Jeff Tiedrich’s condemnation of ABC’s capitulation. He attributes the deal to Disney’s overriding principle: “Protect the mouse.”