The fallout from Donald Trump’s alleged affair with Stormy Daniels landed him in court on Tuesday — but stuck her with a hefty bill.
A federal appeals court has ordered Daniels to pay Trump’s lawyers over $121,000 in legal fees stemming from her failed defamation suit against the former president.
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The former adult film star filed the suit alleging that Trump had defamed her by publicly ridiculating her allegation that an unknown man threatened her and her daughter over an abandoned InTouch Magazine story about what she claimed was a 2006 affair with Trump during a celebrity golf tournament.
Daniels claimed that shortly after she began cooperating with the magazine, an unnamed man had approached her saying “Leave Trump alone. Forget the story” and “That’s a beautiful little girl. It’d be a shame if something happened to her mom,” in reference to her infant daughter.
President Trump ridiculed Daniels’ claims in a 2018 tweet, claiming that it was “A sketch years later about a nonexistent man” and “A total can job,” prompting the defamation suit.
A court dismissed the case and ruled that Trump’s tweet constituted “rhetorical hyperbole,” and ordered Daniels to pay Trump’s legal fees under a statute intended to curb so-called strategic lawsuits against public participation.
Daniels and Trump have repeatedly clashed in court over whether she owed Trump attorneys fees and, most recently, how much she owed.
Daniels had earlier told NBC News earlier that she would “go to jail before I pay a penny” and blamed her former attorney, Michael Avenatti, for allegedly filing the suit against her will. Avenatti was sentenced to 14 years in prison last year for stealing money from clients and tax fraud.
In a decision handed down Tuesday, the 9th Circuit brushed aside Daniels’ challenge to the staffing and fees charged by the Dhillon Law Group, which represented Trump, calling them reasonable.
On Truth Social, Trump’s sons Eric and Don Jr. both cheered the ruling.
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