Stormy Daniels Ordered to Pay Trump Nearly $122,000 in Legal Fees

On the same day Donald Trump entered a plea of not guilty in a case that involves a hush-money payment to Stormy Daniels, the porn actress was ordered to pay Trump nearly $122,000 in legal fees for a defamation case she brought against the former president.

The Ninth Circuit Court of Appeals ruled in a Tuesday order that Daniels, whose real name is Stephanie Clifford, will have to pay Trump for the fees he accrued to Dhillon Law Group for 183.35 hours of work. The total amount is $121,972.56.

Daniels has said the hush money was paid to her by Trump personal attorney and “fixer” Michael Cohen in 2016 to ensure her silence regarding a one-night stand between her and Trump. In 2018, the porn actress and her lawyer Michael Avenatti, who is now a convict, appeared on The View to release a sketch of a man Daniels claimed had threatened her to keep silent in 2011. Trump did not take the appearance well, writing on Twitter that the sketch was of a nonexistent man and adding that it’s “a total con job, playing the Fake News Media for Fools (but they know it)!” Daniels sued Trump for defamation based on that tweet, but the case was dismissed later that year.

The $122,000 sum awarded Tuesday is in addition to the more than $293,000 that Daniels had been ordered to pay after losing in district court and $245,000 for unsuccessfully pursuing an earlier appeal.

Daniels challenged the award of legal fees in the latest appeal on several procedural grounds, but Appellate Commissioner Lisa Fitzgerald was not moved by any of her arguments.

“[Daniels’s] argument that the fee request is unreasonable and excessive is not well-founded. . . . [She] argues that Dhillon Law Group overstaffed the appeal but does not point to any attorney work that was unnecessary,” wrote Fitzgerald. “[Daniels] argues that several tasks the attorneys performed were duplicative, but cites only the attorneys’ time records generally, without identifying any duplicative entries.”

“Trump’s attorneys reasonably spent the requested 183.35 hours preparing a motion to dismiss, a reply to the opposition to the motion, two extension motions, the answering brief, and the fee application. Dhillon eliminated all paralegal time and 30 hours that were arguably duplicative,” Fitzgerald wrote.

She also was not convinced by Daniels’s argument that the fees charged were higher than they ought to have been.

“Clifford’s argument that rates should be no higher than $500 for partners and senior attorneys and $350 for associates is not well-founded,” continued Fitzgerald. “Trump’s requested rates are reasonable and they are awarded.”

Dhillon, who recently challenged Ronna Romney McDaniel for the RNC chairwomanship, celebrated the court’s decision on Twitter, explaining that her firm has obtained over $600,000 in attorney fee awards in Trump’s favor.

Others surrounding the former president, including his son Donald Trump Jr., also celebrated the Ninth Circuit’s move.

Daniels has previously stated that she would rather go to jail than pay a single penny to Trump.

A Trump request for an additional $5,150 for fees accrued preparing the fee reply was denied by Fitzgerald “because it is not accompanied by a detailed itemization of the tasks performed each date and the amount of time spent on each task.”