Stormy Daniels must pay $122,000 in Trump legal bills

LOS ANGELES (AP) — Stormy Daniels must pay nearly $122,000 of Donald 
Trump's legal fees that were racked up in connection with the porn actor's 
failed defamation lawsuit, an appeals court ruled Tuesday.

The decision in California came at about the same time that that Trump 
became the only ex-president to be charged with a crime. Trump pleaded not 
guilty in a New York City courtroom to a 34-count felony indictment 
accusing him falsifying business records in a scheme to hush up 
allegations of extramarital affairs with Daniels and Playboy model Karen 
McDougal that broke during his first White House run.

Daniels, whose real name is Stephanie Clifford, alleges she had an affair 
with Trump in 2006 and was paid $130,000 as part of a nondisclosure 
agreement days before the 2016 presidential election.

She sued him for defamation after he dismissed her claims of being 
threatened to keep quiet about the tryst as a “total con job.” A judge 
threw out the case in 2018.

On Tuesday, a commissioner for the Ninth U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals 
ruled that Trump's attorneys “reasonably spent” more than 183 hours on an 
appeal of the case but denied a request for another $5,150 in other fees 
because it wasn't itemized.

In all, Daniels has been ordered to pay more than $600,000 in Trump’s 
legal fees, tweeted Harmeet Dillon, one of his attorneys in the case.

That includes some $300,000 in attorney's fees that Daniels previously was 
ordered to pay.

After a federal appeals court upheld that award last year, Daniels stated: 
“I will go to jail before I pay a penny.”

Messages seeking comment from her attorney, Oklahoma lawyer Clark 
Brewster, weren't immediately returned after hours Tuesday.

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