Daniels ordered to pay Trump’s legal fees in defamation case

WASHINGTON — A federal judge ruled Tuesday that Stormy Daniels must pay President Donald Trump more than $293,000 in legal fees in her failed defamation lawsuit, a decision that the president’s team hailed as a “total victory” but that Daniels’ attorney vowed would “never hold up on appeal.”

U. S. District Judge James Otero ruled that Daniels must pay Trump $293,052.33 in “attorneys’ fees, costs and sanctions,” a figure representing 75 percent of the amount Trump had been seeking.

Daniels claimed in the lawsuit that Trump defamed her when he suggested that she lied about being threatened to keep quiet about their alleged past relationship. Otero dismissed the suit in October, ruling that Trump’s “rhetorical hyperbole” was political in nature.