Donald Trump has suffered a great many legal setbacks of late, but Politico reported late last week on a defeat that will likely bother the former president more than most.
Donald Trump must pay nearly $400,000 in legal fees to The New York Times and three of its reporters, a judge ruled Friday. … In the Friday order, New York Judge Robert Reed wrote that the sum of $392,638.69 is “reasonable” given the case’s complexity.
For those who might benefit from a refresher, let’s revisit our earlier coverage and review how we arrived at this point.
It was in October 2018 when the Times published one of the most devastating reports I’ve ever seen. In the first real breakthrough on understanding Trump’s controversial finances, the newspaper exposed evidence of “outright fraud” and “dubious tax schemes” that the Republican exploited to receive hundreds of millions of dollars from his father.
The findings painted a picture in which the then-president, far from the self-made man he pretends to be, relied heavily on legally dubious family handouts. As regular readers may recall, it was the first of three brutal reports on Trump’s financial history, leaving little doubt that he had spent much of his adult life meandering between failures and fraudulent endeavors.
The reporting from Susanne Craig, David Barstow, and Russell Buettner received a Pulitzer Prize.
Eventually, he responded to the reporting by filing a $100 million lawsuit against the newspaper and its source — his niece, Mary Trump — who helped expose him as a fraud. She responded to the litigation at the time by saying, “I think he is a f——- loser.”
The quote rang true last May when a New York judge rejected the Republican’s case, ruling that the civil case was based on arguments that “fail as a matter of constitutional law.”
Though the case was resolved at that point, last week’s developments were about requiring Trump to pay the reporters’ legal fees. A spokesperson for the Times told the Associated Press the ruling has “sent a message to those who want to misuse the judicial system to try and silence journalists.” The former president’s case against his niece, however, is still ongoing. Watch this space. This post updates our related earlier coverage.
Steve Benen is a producer for "The Rachel Maddow Show," the editor of MaddowBlog and an MS NOW political contributor. He's also the bestselling author of "Ministry of Truth: Democracy, Reality, and the Republicans' War on the Recent Past."
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