Former president Donald Trump has sued his niece, Mary L. Trump, the New York Times and three of the outlet’s reporters in connection with a 2018 story on his tax records.
The ex-POTUS wrote in the complaint, filed in New York’s Dutchess County, that he is seeking damages from the defendants for a total of “no less than One Hundred Million Dollars” for engaging in an “insidious plot” to obtain confidential documents.
The Times’ story alleged that Donald Trump and his father had concocted a scheme whereby they dodged gift and inheritance taxes by a plethora of methods, such as setting up a sham corporation and undervaluing assets to tax authorities.
Donald Trump, left, talks with his parents, Mary and Fred and his sister, U.S. District Court Judge Maryanne Trump Barry, at the opening of Trump's Taj Mahal Casino Resort in Atlantic City, N.J., Thurs., April 5, 1990
© AP Photo
The manipulations, the reporters claimed, allowed Trump, who had touted himself as a self-made billionaire, to receive at least $413 million from his father over the decades. Times reporters David Barstow, Susanne Craig, and Russ Buettner, singled out in Trump’s lawsuit, won the Pulitzer Prize for Explanatory Reporting in 2019 for their story.
‘Breach of Confidentiality’
Donald Trump’s lawsuit emphasises that his brother Fred Trump, Jr.’s daughter had signed a confidentiality agreement in 2001, yet she was “convinced” by the outlet’s journalists “to smuggle the records out of her attorney’s office and turn them over to The Times.”
The publication, according the ex-president, subsequently “attempted to capitalise on their receipt of the confidential record through their publication of various news articles.”
People walk by the entrance to US newspaper 'The New York Times' in New York
© AFP 2023 / Emmanuel Dunand
Mary Trump, who has been an avid critic of her Uncle and penned a book, Too Much and Never Enough: How My Family Created the World's Most Dangerous Man in 2020, is also accused in the suit of engaging in “an ill-conceived effort to profit from these same events” by publishing her memoir.
In 2001, Mary Trump had signed a confidentiality agreement as part of the settlement of the estate of her grandfather, Fred Trump Sr. When it was revealed she was about to publish her memoir, Robert Trump, the president’s brother, went to court to stop it. An effort was made to prohibit publisher Simon & Schuster from releasing the tell-all book that portrayed the then-POTUS as a liar and a bully.
However, an appellate judge in 2020 overturned a lower court ruling that had temporarily halted publication, ruling that the 2001 confidentiality agreement Mary Trump signed along with other family members had been too vaguely defined.
While leaving in place a restraining order against Mary Trump, the judge said the book’s publisher was not a signatory to the agreement and could not be forced to comply. Donald Trump argued that the Times was aware of the confidentiality agreement but still “relentlessly sought out Mary Trump and intentionally procured her breach of the Settlement Agreement.”
The daughter of the president's older brother, who died in 1981 at the age of 42, commented on the lawsuit in a statement to NBC News, saying:
“I think he is a f***ing loser, and he is going to throw anything against the wall he can. It’s desperation… The walls are closing in and he is throwing anything against the wall that will stick.”
"The Times's coverage of Donald Trump's taxes helped inform citizens through meticulous reporting on a subject of overriding public interest. This lawsuit is an attempt to silence independent news organisations and we plan to vigorously defend against it," a Times spokesperson said in a statement for US media.