Right-Wing Network Retracts False Story About Key Witness in Trump Trial

One America News, a right-wing cable news network, on Monday retracted a report claiming that Donald J. Trump’s former fixer had been the person who actually had an affair with the porn star whose claims of a sexual relationship with Mr. Trump are key to his criminal trial.

The retraction came after the fixer, Michael D. Cohen, hired a leading defamation lawyer to address the false report, which was posted on the network’s website on March 27.

The lawyer, Justin Nelson, had represented Dominion Voting Systems in a suit against Fox News that cost that network $787.5 million to settle. Mr. Nelson worked with Mr. Cohen’s longtime lawyer, Danya Perry, in what was a remarkably quick about-face by OAN.

There are no monetary damages, but the story is being removed from the website “and all social media,” the network said in a statement on Monday.

“This retraction is part of a settlement reached with Michael Cohen,” the statement said. “OAN apologizes to Mr. Cohen for any harm the publication may have caused him.”

The central charges against Mr. Trump in his Manhattan trial are that he falsified business records to a conceal hush-money payment made to Stormy Daniels, the porn star who said she had an affair with Mr. Trump in 2006. Prosecutors say the deal was meant to buy her silence during the 2016 presidential campaign. The former president faces 34 felony counts in the trial, which is scheduled to resume Tuesday.