Former President Donald Trump’s lawsuit against The New York Times regarding the release of his private tax records has been dismissed by a New York court, and Trump has been ordered to pay all legal expenses and attorney fees. The lawsuit also targeted Trump’s niece, Mary Trump, accusing her of participating in a plot with the Times to leak the records. The Times first reported on the leaked tax documents in 2018, revealing that Trump had potentially used dubious tax schemes and fraud to build his real estate empire. The New York Times would eventually release the article titled “Trump Engaged in Suspect Tax Schemes as He Reaped Riches From His Father.”

The report earned the newspaper a Pulitzer Prize in 2019.

Although the New York Times was exonerated from the lawsuit, Mary Trump may still be held accountable for her purported role in the conspiracy. The lawsuit claimed that Mary Trump was supplied with a burnt phone by the New York Times and was urged to break the law by taking the confidential records that contained decades of tax information from an attorney’s office, despite previously signing an agreement to keep the records confidential.

According to the Daily Wire:

New York Supreme Court Justice Robert Reed ordered the former president to pay all legal expenses, attorney fees, and other costs in a Wednesday filing. The judge said Trump’s claims against the paper “fail as a matter of constitutional law” and said the Times’ reporting was “protected First Amendment activity,” according to The Daily Beast.

Trump’s niece, Mary Trump, was also targeted in the lawsuit, which alleged that the Times and Mary hatched an “insidious plot” to leak the former president’s private tax records. The lawsuit alleged that Times’ reporters convinced Mary “to smuggle the records out of her attorney’s office.”

The former president’s lawsuit stated that the newspaper and niece were 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 leaked tax documents were first reported by the Times in 2018 in an article titled, “Trump Engaged in Suspect Tax Schemes as He Reaped Riches From His Father.” The article said that Trump benefitted enormously from his father’s wealth when the former president built his own real estate empire. The Times report said Trump participated in “dubious tax schemes,” as well as “outright fraud” to keep his fortune.

Mary Trump, the daughter of Fred Trump Jr., has written two books titled “Too Much and Never Enough” and “The Reckoning,” in which she criticizes President Donald Trump. However, some have accused her of leveraging her family name to make baseless claims and advance a left-wing agenda. The books rely primarily on her own recollections of events and conversations and have faced criticism from the Trump family for their alleged inaccuracies.