Former United States President Donald Trump filed a $100 million lawsuit against the New York Times and his niece Mary Trump over the news outlet’s 2018 reporting on his tax records, according to reports from Forbes.
The suit, filed in New York’s Dutchess County, alleges NYT journalists “engaged in an insidious plot to obtain confidential and highly-sensitive records” and that they “convinced” Mary Trump to “smuggle records out of her attorney’s office and turn them over to The Times.”
The lawsuit accuses Susanne Craig, David Barstow and Russell Buettner, investigative journalists of NYT of relentlessly seeking out Mary Trump as a source of information and convincing her to turn over documents.
Mary received the documents as part of the settlement she got while battling the will of the former patriarch of the Trump family, Fred Trump.
The suit claims the reporters were aware the settlement agreement barred her from disclosing the documents.
The Times’ story challenged Trump’s claims of self-made wealth by documenting how his father, Fred, had given him at least $413 million over the decades, including through tax avoidance schemes.
In a statement, the Times said its coverage of Trump’s taxes helped inform citizens on a “subject of overriding public interest” and the suit was “an attempt to silence independent news organizations.”
Mary identified herself in a book published in 2020 as the source of the documents provided to the Times.
Trump’s lawsuit alleges Mary, the Times and its reporters “were motivated by a personal vendetta” against him and a desire to push a political agenda.
The journalists named in the lawsuit won a Pulitzer Prize in 2019 for their reporting on Trump’s finances that debunked his claims of self-made wealth and revealed allegations of a business empire riddled with tax dodges.
In a statement, Mary Trump called her uncle “a loser.”
“It’s desperation. The walls are closing in and he is throwing anything against the wall that he thinks will stick,” she said.
“As is always the case with Donald, he’ll try and change the subject.”