Former President Donald Trump had a bad day in a Manhattan, New York courtroom on Tuesday as he was arraigned and charged criminally in relation to the 2016 "hush money" payment of $130,000 to porn actress Stormy Daniels to silence her about an alleged 2006 affair.
On the opposite side of the country, however, Trump had a great day as Daniels was ordered to pay nearly $122,000 in legal fees incurred by Trump in a separate but related civil lawsuit, the Conservative Brief reported.
The Associated Press reported that Daniels, whose real name is Stephanie Clifford, had sued then-President Trump in 2018 for defamation after he had insultingly dismissed her disputed claims about the alleged 2006 affair but lost when that suit was thrown out of court.
She was then ordered to compensate Trump for the amount he "reasonably spent" on attorneys fees to defend against that dismissed defamation suit, but Clifford steadfastly refused to pay even after the dismissal had been upheld last year by a federal appeals court.
That led to a hearing on Tuesday in front of a Ninth Circuit Court of Appeals commissioner in a Los Angeles, California courtroom to determine the appropriate amount to be paid in addition to the more than $300,000 Clifford had already been ordered to pay, and the commissioner awarded another $121,962.56 to be paid by Clifford for Trump's attorney fees.
Eric Trump, the former president's middle son, tweeted after the ruling, "BREAKING!!! the 9th Circuit just awarded Trump $121,962.56 in attorney fees from Stormy Daniels. Order just released. This in addition to the roughly $500k she already owes him."
That was then retweeted, along with screenshots of the Ninth Circuit commissioner's ruling, by conservative attorney Harmeet Dhillon, whose Dhillon Law Group firm represented Trump in the matter.
Dhillon wrote, "Congratulations to President Trump on this final attorney fee victory in his favor this morning. Collectively, our firm obtained over $600,000 in attorney fee awards in his favor in the meritless litigation initiated by Stormy Daniels."
Congratulations to President Trump on this final attorney fee victory in his favor this morning. Collectively, our firm obtained over $600,000 in attorney fee awards in his favor in the meritless litigation initiated by Stormy Daniels. https://t.co/ld7SVvZOp6 pic.twitter.com/1b5P3flxFb
— Harmeet K. Dhillon (@pnjaban) April 4, 2023
Meanwhile, at the same time that former President Trump was victorious in the Los Angeles courtroom, it was a different story for him in the Manhattan courtroom, according to the New York Post.
After being arrested and fingerprinted, Trump was then arraigned and pleaded not guilty to the 34 counts of falsifying business records in the first degree that were unveiled by Democratic Manhattan District Attorney Alvin Bragg in a now-unsealed criminal indictment.
That alleged crime is considered a class E felony that carries a maximum of four years in prison, and while highly unlikely, Trump could potentially face an astonishing combined total of 136 years in prison if convicted on all counts and ordered to serve the maximum for each charge consecutively.
Normally, falsifying business records in New York is a misdemeanor crime, but as was somewhat laid out in a "Statement of Facts," DA Bragg has elevated the misdemeanors to felonies by alleging a conspiracy and tenuously linking the 2017 reimbursement payments to then-personal attorney Michael Cohen -- who facilitated the 2016 payoff to Daniels -- to some unspecified federal campaign finance violation.
Per Breitbart, New York Judge Juan Merchan set an unspecified date in January 2024 for the trial to commence, right before primary voting in the individual states gets underway, and also set December 4 for Trump's next court appearance, right in the middle of the GOP primary debates.
