The Ninth Circuit Court of Appeals on Tuesday ordered adult film actress Stormy Daniels to pay former President Donald Trump almost $122,000 in legal fees, stemming from a defamation lawsuit she filed in 2018 against Trump that was later dismissed.
The civil lawsuit is separate from the unprecedented 34-count indictment accusing Trump of falsifying business records. Trump pleaded not guilty to the charges in a Manhattan court on Tuesday.
The two cases, while separate, both involve Daniels, who was paid $130,000 for signing a non-disclosure agreement (NDA) in 2016 ahead of the presidential election so that she would not speak about an alleged one-night affair she had with Trump in 2006. The NDA was facilitated by Trump’s then-attorney, Michael Cohen.
While Trump has consistently denied the affair took place, on Tuesday, Trump posted on TruthSocial, writing that it was a “totally legal $130,000 NDA.”
The legal fees ordered on Tuesday comes on top of more than $500,000 Daniels was previously ordered to pay to cover the former president’s legal fees. That includes the $293,000 she was ordered to pay in March 2022 after a federal appeals court rejected her request to overturn a lower court decision regarding the 2018 defamation suit. Daniels was also ordered to pay $245,000 in fees after losing another appeal.
In a Twitter post late Tuesday, Trump’s son, Donald Trump Jr., wrote: “[T]he 9th Circuit just awarded Trump $121,962.56 in attorney fees from Stormy Daniels. Order just released. This in addition to the roughly $500k she already owes him. LOL glad she’s out there saying her T-shirt sales are booming she’ll be able to afford to pay Trump!”
Failed Defamation Suit
Daniels, whose real name is Stephanie Clifford, sued Trump for defamation after the then-president posted on Twitter a post that showed a photo of her and her ex-husband, adjacent to a composite sketch Daniels commissioned that showed a mystery man. The post, shared in April 2018, reads: “A sketch years later about a nonexistent man. A total con job, playing the Fake News Media for Fools (but they know it)!”
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