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Court fines Trump $400,000
January 13, 2024, 2:59 a.m
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Reporters from the New York Times won the Pulitzer Prize in 2019 for their research into Donald Trump’s financial dealings. The former US president is less enthusiastic and sues the three journalists – without success. Now Trump should reimburse the US newspaper for its legal fees.
A US court has ordered former President Donald Trump to reimburse the New York Times and several of the newspaper’s journalists nearly $400,000 in legal fees after a failed lawsuit. A New York judge ruled that the newspaper’s reported legal fees of $392,638 appeared “reasonable.” Trump, who wants to run again in the presidential election in November, must reimburse the entire amount.
The Republican sued the New York Times in September 2021. He accused three journalists from the renowned newspaper of having hatched an “insidious plot” to obtain his tax returns. The lawsuit was dismissed last May.
The New York Times journalists reported extensively on the financial behavior of the Trump family in 2018 after 18 months of research. The reporters revealed, among other things, that Trump, who likes to portray himself as a successful self-made entrepreneur, had received more than $400 million from his father over the years. Some of the money is said to have flowed through a shell company in order to avoid taxes. Trump is said to have once helped his parents, who died in 1999 and 2000, to downsize their real estate holdings and thus save taxes.
The journalists were awarded the prestigious Pulitzer Prize in 2019 for their research and subsequent series of articles on the Trump business empire. An important source for the story was Trump’s niece Mary, as she herself explained. “The lawsuit is an attempt to silence independent news organizations and we will defend ourselves vigorously,” a spokeswoman for the newspaper said at the time. The ex-president also sued his niece in the case.