Humbled Trump Admits Defeat in $100m Legal Vendetta Against Niece

Donald Trump has dropped his $100 million lawsuit against his niece for allegedly handing confidential records to reporters probing his tax affairs.

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The 80-year-old president had sued Mary Trump, 61, along with ABC News, the New York Times, and several of the newspaper’s reporters in September 2021, accusing them of an “insidious plot” to pry loose his private financial records that was motivated by “a personal vendetta and their desire to gain fame.”

Both sides asked the judge to toss the case with prejudice, a step that would bar the president from ever reviving the claim. Neither side has disclosed the financial terms, with a formal dismissal expected in the coming weeks.

The climbdown comes after Trump already lost his case against the Times and its reporters. A New York judge, Justice Robert Reed, in 2023 threw out the case—in which Trump alleged the journalists had “relentlessly sought out” his niece to make her “smuggle” the records to the paper.

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Reed ruled their pursuit of the niece sat “at the very core of protected First Amendment activity.” Reed also ordered Trump to pick up the defendants’ legal bills. The journalists behind the story had already claimed a Pulitzer in 2019 for their dig into the family’s finances.

The deal caps a run of Trump strikes at those who exposed his tax dealings. In January, he hit the IRS and the Treasury Department with a $10 billion suit, then dropped it in favor of a contested $1.776 billion “anti-weaponization” fund.

Clinton appointee Leonie Brinkema, a federal judge in Virginia, moved on Friday to freeze that fund indefinitely.

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