An appeals court has determined that Stormy Daniels is responsible for paying about $122,000 in legal costs incurred by President Trump in connection with the porn actor’s unsuccessful defamation lawsuit.
About the same time that Mr. Trump became the only former US president to be charged with a crime, the California decision was made.
A 34-count felony indictment accusing Mr. Trump of falsifying business records in an effort to conceal allegations of extramarital affairs with Ms. Daniels and Playboy model Karen McDougal that surfaced during his first run for the White House was met with Mr. Trump’s plea of not guilty in a New York City courtroom.
She claims she had an affair with Mr. Trump in 2006 and received $130,000 as part of a non-disclosure agreement days before the 2016 presidential election. Ms. Daniels’ real name is Stephanie Clifford.
After he called her accusations that she had been pressured to remain silent about the tryst a “complete scam job,” she filed a defamation lawsuit against him.
In 2018, a judge dismissed the lawsuit.
The Ninth US Circuit Court of Appeals commissioner determined on Tuesday that Mr. Trump’s lawyers “fairly spent” more than 183 hours on an appeal of the case, but she rejected a request for an additional $5,150 in other costs because it was not itemized.
According to tweets from one of Mr. Trump’s attorneys involved in the lawsuit, Harmeet Dillon, Ms. Daniels has been mandated to pay more than $600,000 in legal costs.
DA Alvin Bragg's star witness Stormy Daniels has been ordered to pay another $121k to Trump for a frivolous lawsuit she filed that was laughed out of court. The courts in California have ordered Daniels pay more than $600k total in awarded legal fees. https://t.co/BSMpzZcOV3