A federal district court judge has ordered Stormy Daniels to pay the attorneys of President Donald Trump nearly $300,000 in legal fees that were accrued in the defamation suit she brought against him earlier this year.
Adult film star Stormy Daniels was ordered by a federal judge in a California court to reimburse the lawyers representing Donald Trump for their attorney’s fees, costs and sanctions in the defamation suit that she and her attorney Michael Avenatti brought against the President earlier this year.
Attorneys for the president had asked for nearly $800,000 to reimburse them for spending more than 500 hours in defense of the president.
Charles Harder, the president’s legal counsel, called the ruling “a total victory for the President” in a statement. Trump’s attorney was referring to the fact that this order comes on the heels of a previous court order dismissing Daniels’ defamation case against the President.
“The U.S. District Court today ordered Stormy Daniels (real name Stephanie Clifford) to pay President Trump $292,052.33 to reimburse his attorneys’ fees (75% of his total legal bill), plus an additional $1,000 in sanctions to punish Daniels for having filed a meritless lawsuit against the President designed to chill his free speech rights,” Harder said in a statement.
Following the ruling, Daniels’ attorney Michael Avenatti wrote on Twitter, in a tweet that has since been deleted, “Charles Harder and Trump deserve each other because they are both dishonest. If Stormy has to pay $300k to Trump in the defamation case (which will never hold up on appeal) and Trump has to pay Stormy $1,500,000 in the NDA case (net $1,200,000 to Stormy), how is this a Trump win?”
“Trump asked for $800k in attorneys’ fees, costs and sanctions from the minor defamation case,” Avenatti added in a since deleted tweet, “The ct awarded well less than 1/2, recognizing that the request was gross & excessive. The amount in fees awarded Stormy in the main NDA case will be at least $1 million more than this.”
The defamation suit, which Daniels must reimburse legal fees for, is a different lawsuit from the original lawsuit she had filed regarding the nondisclosure agreement she had engaged in with former Trump attorney Michael Cohen. That agreement is now at the center of the federal criminal case against Cohen.
