Former President Donald Trump has been ordered to pay The New York Times nearly $400,000 in legal fees stemming from a lawsuit he brought against the publication, three of its reporters and his niece over a Pulitzer Prize-winning story about his family’s wealth and tax practices.

Trump filed a $100 million lawsuit against the liberal paper and his niece, Mary Trump, in 2021 accusing them of “tortiously breaching and/or interfering with his contractual rights and otherwise maliciously conspiring against him” to obtain and publish his tax records in 2018.

In May, Justice Robert R. Reed threw out the lawsuit against the newspaper and reporters Susanne Craig, David Barstow and Russell Buettner saying in his ruling that Trump’s claims against The Times “fail as a matter of constitutional law.” Trump’s claim against his estranged niece — that she breached a prior settlement agreement by giving tax records to the reporters — is still pending.

A court has ordered Donald Trump to pay the New York Times $400,000 in legal fees over a failed lawsuit on his family’s wealth and tax practices. ( SAUL LOEB/AFP via Getty Images)

The suit alleges that Craig “persistently and relentlessly sought out Mary Trump in her pursuit of certain documents which she believed to be in Mary Trump’s possession” and eventually provided the president’s niece with a “burner” phone to help her smuggle the confidential documents from a law office. 

Mary Trump has been an outspoken critic of her uncle and regularly appears on liberal cable news networks to bash him. She penned the 2020 book “Too Much and Never Enough: How My Family Created the World’s Most Dangerous Man” along with the 2021 follow-up, “The Reckoning: Our Nation’s Trauma and Finding a Way to Heal.” 

The Times published an article on Oct. 2, 2018, titled, “Trump Engaged in Suspect Tax Schemes as He Reaped Riches from His Father,” which acknowledged it was “based on a vast trove of confidential tax returns and financial records.” The language confirms the Times “had actual knowledge that the Confidential Records were, in fact, confidential,” according to the suit. 

Fox News’ Joseph A. Wulfsohn and Brian Flood as well as The Associated Press contributed to this report. 

Michael Dorgan is a writer for Fox News Digital and Fox Business.

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