Trump Can Proceed With Lawsuit Against His Niece, Court Rules

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Former President Donald J. Trump can proceed with a lawsuit against Mary L. Trump, his estranged niece, over her role as a source for a New York Times investigation into Mr. Trump’s finances, a New York State appeals court said on Thursday. The ruling, from the Appellate Division of the State Supreme Court, was a victory for Mr. Trump, though it did not address the substance of his claim: that his niece should be held liable for breaching a confidentiality agreement when she provided financial documents to a team of Times journalists. Those documents became the basis of a series of news articles examining what The Times called Mr. Trump’s history of tax avoidance and “outright fraud.” The series received a Pulitzer Prize for explanatory reporting in 2019. Mr. Trump sued The Times in 2021 over the articles, accusing the news organization of improperly inducing his niece to provide the documents. Last year, a New York judge dismissed Mr. Trump’s claims against The Times and its journalists; the judge also ordered the former president to pay the newspaper’s legal fees.