A judge in New York has ordered Donald Trump to fork over nearly $400,000 in legal fees underpinning a now-dismissed lawsuit he brought against the newspaper and a trio of its reporters when they published a bombshell series of reports on his history of tax schemes and “riches” reaped from his father.
The order was first reported by Times reporter Susanne Craig, one of the report’s authors. Per the order, fees are also due to reporters David Barstow and Russ Buettner.
The claim from Trump was dismissed by a New York Supreme Court judge last May, who found that reporters were “entitled to engage in legal and ordinary news-gathering activities without fear or tort liability — as their actions are at the very core of protected first amendment activity.”
A representative for Trump did not immediately respond to a request for comment to Law&Crime on Friday.
In an email, Danielle Rhoades Ha, the senior vice president for external communications at the Times told said the judge’s decision “shows that the state’s newly amended anti-SLAPP statute can be a powerful force for protecting press freedom.”
“The court has sent a message to those who want to misuse the judicial system to try to silence journalists,” Ha added.
Trump first filed the lawsuit against his niece, Mary Trump, the paper and its reporters in 2021 arguing there was an “insidious plot” underway to blast his private tax returns improperly into the public sphere.
Trump accused Craig, Barstow and Buettner of somehow “smuggling” records out of the grips of Mary Trump’s lawyer to mount their investigation into his tax records.
In fact, the in-depth, deeply-sourced report won a Pulitzer Prize and exposed a massive empire “riddled with tax dodges,” award judges said at the time.
The decision notably arrives as Trump’s civil tax fraud trial just concluded in New York a day before and amid outbursts from Trump that sounded familiar to those he lobbed against the Times.
It is now in the hands of New York Supreme Court Justice Arthur Engoron to decide whether he will impose a fine of $370 million on Trump for what the state’s attorney general Letitia James has claimed is long pattern of fraud perpetrated by him and his top executives on the New York real estate industry.
If James has her way, Engoron will also ban Trump from life from ever dabbling in New York real estate ventures again.
A ruling is expected in that matter by the end of this month though CNBC reported that the Engoron told the court Thursday there is “no guarantee” he will issue it before Jan. 31.
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