At roughly the same time that former President Donald Trump pleaded not guilty to criminal charges Tuesday afternoon in a Manhattan courtroom, he notched a win in a federal appeals court in California against the adult film star at the heart of the New York indictment.
The U.S. Court of Appeals for the 9th Circuit issued a six-page order directing Stormy Daniels to pay nearly $122,000 in legal fees to Trump’s attorneys. That sum is in addition to the more than $293,000 that Daniels had been ordered to pay after losing a libel case against the former president in federal district court and $245,000 for unsuccessfully pursuing an earlier appeal.
Adult film actress Stormy Daniels Markus Schreiber/Associated Press, file
The New York and California cases aren’t directly related, but the timing was striking since they involve the same underlying events: Daniels’ claim that she had an affair with Trump – which he has denied – and efforts by Trump’s former longtime lawyer and fixer Michael Cohen to stop her story from becoming public ahead of the 2016 presidential election by orchestrating a $130,000 hush money payment.
Trump pleaded not guilty Tuesday in Manhattan state court to a 34-count indictment that accuses him of falsifying business records in order to hide reimbursement payments to Cohen and influence the election. The Manhattan district attorney’s office has alleged that Trump falsified records to further other crimes, including violating state and federal election laws.
Prosecutor Chris Conroy told the New York judge during Tuesday’s arraignment that Daniels might be a witness in the case as it moves forward.
The California case dates back to 2018. Daniels, whose legal name is Stephanie Clifford, had sued Trump over a tweet in which he accused her of a “total con job” after she said she’d been threatened in order to keep quiet about her claim of having an affair. A judge ruled in late 2018 that Trump’s tweet was “rhetorical hyperbole” protected under the First Amendment, and then ordered Daniels to pay nearly $292,000 in legal fees plus a $1,000 sanction.
Daniels appealed, and after losing the first round, in March 2022 was ordered to pay more than $245,000 in fees. The 9th Circuit then rejected Daniels’ appeal of the district judge’s original attorney fee award, finding she had waited too long to present it. Daniels had acknowledged she was responsible for paying fees as the losing party, but argued the fee request by Trump’s lawyers for $128,000 was “excessive.” A special commissioner tasked with evaluating Trump’s request denied part of it because the lawyers hadn’t submitted an itemized task log, but approved the bulk of it.
Daniels’ attorneys didn’t immediately return a request for comment.
Trump’s attorney Harmeet Dhillon provided a statement saying that they were “gratified that the 9th Circuit awarded the vast majority of fees incurred in the final stage of this litigation that never should have taken a moment of the court’s time. In total, the court awarded our client over $600,000 in fees in this dispute that Ms. Clifford initiated. We are glad to have brought this matter to a successful conclusion for our client.”
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