Trump sues his niece and The New York Times over leaked tax documents

Former President Donald Trump filed a lawsuit on Tuesday accusing Mary L. Trump, The New York Times and three of its reporters of conspiring in an “insidious plot” to improperly obtain his confidential tax records and exploit their use in news articles and a book.

The lawsuit claims that the Times reporters, as part of an effort to obtain the tax records, relentlessly sought out Mary Trump, the former president’s niece, and persuaded her “to smuggle the records out of her attorney’s office” and turn them over to The Times.

That action, according to the lawsuit, breached a confidentiality agreement that was part of the settlement of litigation involving the will of the former president’s father, Fred C. Trump, who died in 1999.

Donald Trump’s lawsuit, filed in state Supreme Court in Dutchess County, New York, accuses the newspaper, its reporters and Mary Trump of being motivated “by a personal vendetta and their desire to gain fame, notoriety, acclaim and a financial windfall and were further intended to advance their political agenda.”

The suit comes as the former president continues to argue falsely that the 2020 election was stolen from him, and as his family company, the Trump Organization, and its longtime chief financial officer, Allen H. Weisselberg, have been accused by Manhattan prosecutors of avoiding taxes on employee perks that should have been reported as income. They have pleaded not guilty.

During his 2016 presidential campaign, Trump promised to make his tax returns public, as presidential candidates, including President Joe Biden, have done for at least 40 years. But Trump then refused to release them, citing an ongoing audit.

The documents that Mary Trump provided were the basis of a 2018 article that delved into what The Times called Donald Trump’s history of tax dodging and outright fraud, according to the lawsuit.

The Times report cast doubt on Trump’s claim that he was a self-made billionaire who rose to wealth and fame with little help from his father, a real estate developer. Instead, the investigation found, Trump inherited the equivalent of at least $413 million, much of it through “dubious tax schemes.”

The lawsuit seeks compensatory and punitive damages and says the former president lost at least $100 million as a result of the defendants’ actions.

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