CNN
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Donald Trump has paid $392,000 to The New York Instances to cowl the authorized prices from his failed lawsuit in opposition to the newspaper and its journalists over a 2018 investigation into his funds that included confidential tax information, a spokesman for the Instances advised CNN on Monday.
Trump was ordered to pay the cash in January, greater than eight months after Choose Robert R. Reed granted the Instances’ movement to dismiss the case in opposition to it and its journalists, concluding the journalists’ conduct was protected by the New York Structure.
Among the many claims that Trump introduced in opposition to the Instances was the accusation that the journalists had been responsible for “tortious interference” in how they allegedly sought out his niece and precipitated her to allegedly breach a 2001 settlement contract with the Trump household, CNN previously reported.
The reporting series, authored by David Barstow, Susanne Craig and Russ Buettner, went on to win the 2019 Pulitzer Prize in Explanatory Reporting.
Final yr, the judge said he was dismissing the declare in opposition to the Instances “as a result of The Instances’ goal in reporting on a narrative of a excessive public curiosity constitutes justification as a matter of legislation.”
The decide pointed to latest amendments made to New York’s so-called anti-SLAPP legislation — which supplies a mechanism for defendants to hunt fast dismissal of lawsuits that concentrate on conduct protected by the First Modification — in explaining why he was ordering the dismissal of the defendants and the fee of their attorneys’ charges.
A spokesman for the Instances on Monday known as the anti-SLAPP statute a “highly effective drive for safeguarding press freedom.”
“This determination reveals that the state’s newly amended anti-SLAPP statute could be a highly effective drive for safeguarding press freedom,” Instances spokesman Charlie Stadtlander mentioned in an announcement. “The courtroom has despatched a message to those that need to misuse the judicial system to attempt to silence journalists.”
CNN has reached out to representatives for Trump for remark.
– CNN’s Rob Frehse contributed to this text.