Donald Trump once tried to pay off $2 million in legal fees with a deed to a horse, according a new book by New York Times journalist David Enrich.
The Guardian published an excerpt of the book titled, “Servants of the Damned: Giant Law Firms, Donald Trump and the Corruption of Justice” set to be released next week.
According to the excerpt, Trump had racked up around $2 million in legal fees with a prestigious law firm in the 90s and refused to pay, so the lawyer made an unannounced visit to Trump Tower.
The lawyer was “incredibly disappointed” and couldn’t see any reason why Trump hadn’t paid the bill.
“Trump made some apologetic noises. Then he said: ‘I’m not going to pay your bill. I’m going to give you something more valuable,’” Enrich wrote, per The Guardian, leaving the lawyer to wonder what exactly Trump was talking about.
“I have a stallion. It’s worth $5 million,” Trump said. According to Enrich’s book, Trump then began looking through a filing cabinet and pulled out a “deed to a horse.”
“Once he regained the capacity for speech,” the lawyer reportedly said, “This isn’t the 1800s. You can’t pay me with a horse.”
Enrich wrote that Trump “eventually coughed up at least a portion of what he owed” after the lawyer threatened to sue him.
Trump has a history of not paying his legal fees. Michael Wolff’s 2021 book titled: “Landslide: The Final Days of the Trump Presidency,” described how the former president was upset with Rudy Giuliani for asking for $20,000 per day to work on his plan to try and overturn the results of the 2020 election in the courts.
Even out of the White House Trump has continued to rack up extensive legal fees, the only difference this time is the Republican National Committee is offering to foot the bill. Since October 2021, the RNC has paid nearly $2 million in legal fees for the former president.
