‘It’s desperation’: Donald Trump sues his niece, Mary Trump

Mary Trump has hit out the “f***ing loser” former president, who is suing both her and a major newspaper over a series of allegations over his tax affairs.

Donald Trump is suing his estranged niece, Mary, and The New York Times over a series of articles detailing the former president’s family wealth and tax practices.

The stories — published in 2018 and 2020 — relied on confidential documents obtained by Ms Trump, and challenged the 75-year-old’s claims of being a self-made man. The articles alleged that Trump’s father, Fred, had given him at least $US413 ($A577m) million over the decades, including through tax avoidance schemes. Ms Trump received the documents in a dispute over her grandfather’s estate.

According to the Times investigation, for years Mr Trump paid less in taxes than people living below the poverty line. It’s an allegation his lawyers vehemently denied multiple times and said “there was no fraud or tax evasion by anyone” and that “most, if not all, of the facts appear to be inaccurate”.

Now, the former leader has filed a $US100 ($A138m) million lawsuit against his estranged niece, the paper and three of its investigative reporters.

Teh 45th president has accused Ms Trump of breaching a settlement agreement by disclosing the records, and accused the Times and its reporters Susanne Craig, David Bartsow and Russell Buettner of relentlessly seeking her out as a source of information and convincing her to hand over the documents.

Donald Trump is suing his estranged niece, Mary, and The New York Times over a series of articles detailing the former president’s family wealth and tax practices. Picture: Chip Somodevilla/Getty Images/AFP

The suit claims that the reporters and Ms Trump engaged in an “insidious plot” and an “extensive crusade” to obtain Mr Trump’s taxes, “which they exploited for their own benefit and used as a means of falsely legitimising their publicised works”.

It additionally accuses Ms Trump of violating a confidentiality agreement that barred her from publicly releasing the details of the family’s finances, declaring she and the Times journalists were “motivated by a personal vendetta and their desire to gain fame, notoriety, acclaim and a financial windfall” and to “advance their political agenda”.

Ms Trump swiftly hit out at her uncle — who, post-presidency, is reportedly plotting his return to the White House while moonlighting as a boxing commentator — telling the Daily Beast that “he is a f***ing loser”.

“He is going to throw anything against the wall he can. It’s desperation,” the 56-year-old, whose book Too Much and Never Enough: How My Family Created the World’s Most Dangerous Man was published in the middle of Mr Trump’s re-election campaign, said of the lawsuit.

“The walls are closing in, and he is throwing anything against the wall that will stick. As is always the case with Donald, he’ll try and change the subject.”

Mary Trump called her uncle a “f***ing loser”. Picture: Peter Serling

A New York Times spokeswoman said the lawsuit is “an attempt to silence independent news organisations and we plan to vigorously defend against it”. Picture: Johannes Eisele/AFP

Her lawyer, Theodore J Boutrous Jr, also came out swinging.

“This is the latest in a long line of frivolous lawsuits by Donald Trump that target truthful speech and important journalism on issues of public concern,” he told the Daily Beast.

“It is doomed to failure like the rest of his baseless efforts to chill freedom of speech and of the press.”

As for the Times, spokeswoman Danielle Rhoads Ha told the Associated Press that the lawsuit is nothing more than “an attempt to silence independent news organisations and we plan to vigorously defend against it”.

The paper’s coverage of Mr Trump’s taxes, she said, “helped inform citizens through meticulous reporting on a subject of overriding public interest”.