Donald Trump settles lawsuit against niece over publication of tax records

NEW YORK - US President Donald Trump has settled his lawsuit accusing his niece Mary Trump of improperly leaking information to the New York Times for its Pulitzer Prize-winning 2018 probe into his finances and his alleged effort to avoid taxes.

Both sides announced a settlement in a letter filed on June 16 with a New York state court in Manhattan, and expect to seek a formal dismissal in the coming weeks.

No terms were disclosed. A dismissal would be with prejudice, meaning the US president could not sue again.

Lawyers for Donald Trump and Mary Trump did not immediately respond to requests for comment. The White House referred a request for comment to the president’s lawyers. Donald Trump sued Mary Trump in 2021, accusing her of joining an “insidious plot” with the Times to exploit his tax records in order to make money, advance their political agendas and fulfill vendettas.

Trump said his niece violated confidentiality provisions of a 2001 settlement over the estate of Fred Trump Sr., who was Donald Trump’s father and Mary Trump’s grandfather. Fred Trump died in 1999. Mary Trump, a psychologist, identified herself as a Times source in her 2020 tell-all best seller, Too Much and Never Enough: How My Family Created the World’s Most Dangerous Man. In May 2024, a state appeals court found a “substantial” legal basis for Donald Trump’s confidentiality claim, but said he might deserve only “nominal damages” rather than the US$100 million (S$128.29 million) he sought.

Lawyers for Mary Trump argued that the lawsuit violated a New York state law barring frivolous cases designed to silence critics’ free speech.

A judge overseeing the case dismissed Donald Trump’s related claims against the Times and the reporters in 2023, and later ordered him to pay US$392,639 of their legal fees. The same judge in 2022 dismissed Mary Trump’s separate lawsuit accusing the president and two of his siblings of defrauding her out of a multimillion-dollar inheritance. REUTERS