In a legal drama that unfolded on Friday, former US President Donald Trump faced the aftermath of a failed lawsuit, being slapped with a nearly $400,000 bill in legal costs to be settled with the New York Times and several journalists.
Trump, who initiated the legal battle in September 2021, had accused three journalists of orchestrating what he dubbed an “insidious plot” to acquire his tax documents. These allegations stemmed from an investigative report published in 2018 by the New York Times, which ultimately clinched a prestigious Pulitzer Prize.
The case reached its climax in May 2023 when a judge in the commercial division of the New York State Supreme Court dismissed Trump’s claims. Adding salt to the wound, the judge, mindful of Trump’s ambitious return to the White House in the upcoming election, mandated him to foot the bill for the defendants’ legal expenses.
The ruling, delivered on Friday, endorsed the New York Times’ claim of incurring $392,638 in attorney’s fees as a “reasonable” estimate. Consequently, Trump is now compelled to reimburse the entire amount, underscoring a legal saga that began with accusations of an “insidious plot” but culminated in a substantial financial setback for the former president.
The New York Times’ investigative report, at the heart of the legal skirmish, laid bare a complex financial web surrounding Trump. Despite his decades-long boast of independently amassing a business fortune, the exposé revealed that Trump had received an inflation-adjusted equivalent of $413 million from his father over several years. Much of this wealth had been cleverly funneled through a shell company, strategically designed to sidestep taxation.
