The Supreme Court of the State of New York ruled that Donald Trump must pay the defendants' legal fees in his frivolous lawsuit against The New York Times, his niece Mary Trump, and other individuals. The total fees, legal expenses, and costs amounted to $392,638.69.
Trump opposed the motion, claiming the fees were unjustified and excessive. In other words, he said it was not fair that his defendants spent so much defending themselves against his baseless lawsuit, and he shouldn't have to pay.
But the court deemed the fees reasonable, considering various factors like the complexity of the case, the lawyers' expertise, and the results obtained.
Trump filed the lawsuit in September 2021, claiming that The New York Times, three of its reporters, and Mary Trump conspired in an "insidious plot" to steal his tax records and publish them. In a New York Times article from September 2021, Mary Trump's lawyer predicted the outcome of the lawsuit when he said, "It is doomed to failure like the rest of his baseless efforts to chill freedom of speech and of the press."
