Donald Trump settles 100 million dollar lawsuit against niece, Mary Trump, over leaked tax records
President Donald Trump has reached a settlement in his $100 million lawsuit against his niece, Mary Trump, whom he had accused of conspiring with journalists to leak his confidential tax records. A joint court filing confirmed that both parties have agreed to a resolution and expect the action to be formally dismissed with prejudice once specific preliminary conditions are met. The exact terms of the agreement have not been disclosed.
The legal battle dates back to 2021, when Donald Trump filed the lawsuit following the end of his first presidential term. He alleged that Mary Trump, an outspoken critic of her uncle, participated in an illicit plot with three investigative reporters to secure financial documents for a Pulitzer Prize-winning 2018 expose. The lawsuit claimed she surreptitiously removed the tax records from her lawyer's office after acquiring them through a 2001 inheritance dispute settlement regarding Donald Trump’s late father, Fred Trump. In doing so, she allegedly breached a binding nondisclosure and confidentiality agreement.
The original litigation also targeted the three journalists involved in the investigation. However, a state judge dismissed the claims against the reporters in 2023, subsequently ordering Donald Trump to pay nearly $400,000 in legal fees to their publication. Following Donald Trump's victory in the 2024 presidential election, Mary Trump petitioned a New York court to pause the proceedings, citing a severe imbalance of power and suggesting a freeze would allow the president to fulfill his official duties without distraction. New York Supreme Court Justice Robert Reed rejected that request, permitting the litigation to continue.
The resolution follows a period of stagnation in the case. Defense attorneys accused the president of intentionally delaying the proceedings after experiencing persistent difficulties scheduling his deposition. While a status conference in mid-May indicated that the deposition had still not taken place, legal counsel noted that the two sides were nearing a final resolution.
The underlying 2018 media investigation challenged the president's public narrative of being a self-made billionaire, detailing how he avoided significant taxes and inherited hundreds of millions of dollars from his father over his lifetime. While the initial reports cited an anonymous source, Mary Trump later acknowledged in her 2020 tell-all book, Too Much and Never Enough: How My Family Created the World’s Most Dangerous Man, that she had provided the files. Donald Trump had previously attempted to block the publication of that book through a separate, unsuccessful lawsuit.
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