Adult film star Stormy Daniels will have to pay the majority of Donald Trump’s legal bills in their defamation case.
It looks like the legal battle between Trump and his former lover Daniels is somewhat coming to an end. According to NBC News, a federal judge ordered Daniels to cough up a whopping $293,052.33 to cover Trump’s legal fees in connection with her failed defamation lawsuit against him. The judge did not award the full amount that was requested besides the penalty of $1,000. Originally, it was almost $800,000 in legal fees and sanctions that Trump’s lawyer Charles Harder asked for earlier this month in U.S. District Court in Los Angeles.
Back in October, U.S. District Judge James Otero dismissed Daniels suit against Trump, who accused Daniels in a tweet on April 18 of having fabricated a story about a man threatening to hurt her if she didn’t leave Trump alone. Otero found that the tweet “constitutes ‘rhetorical hyperbole’ normally associated with politics and public discourse in the United States” protected under the First Amendment, and he dismissed it under a Texas law that limits lawsuits intended to silence political speech through legal intimidation, NBC reports.⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀
“The court’s order, along with the court’s prior order dismissing Stormy Daniels’ defamation case against the President, together constitute a total victory for the President, and a total defeat for Stormy Daniels in this case,” court documents read. According to CNBC, Trump’s lawyer Charles Harder was paid $841.64 per hour in the case. Other lawyers were paid from $307.60 per hour up to $756.49 per hour.
