Donald Trump has filed a lawsuit against his niece, Mary Trump, and The New York Times over a story about their family’s wealth and tax practices, Newsweek reports. That’s inspired her to use one of her uncle’s favorite insults.

The ex-president is accusing his niece of breaching a confidentiality agreement because she disclosed tax records she received stemming from a dispute over the estate of the family patriarch, Fred Trump.

“I think he is a loser, and he is going to throw anything against the wall he can,” Mary Trump to NBC News.

And of course, “loser” is an insult the ex-president is fond of using. He’s used that word time and again when someone crosses him in some way or opposes his opinions, so perhaps she figured if the shoe fits he may as well wear it.

The lawsuit, filed in Dutchess County, New York, alleges that the Times and three of its reporters — Suzanne Craig, David Barstow, and Russell Buettner, of seeking Mary Trump as a source and then persuading her to turn over documents, despite an agreement that bars their disclosure.

In the lawsuit, Trump is alleging that Mary Trump, the Times, and its reporters “were motivated by a personal vendetta” and had undertaken “an insidious plot” to obtain the records for a story that was published in 2018.

It’s understandable why Trump may be in a snit over this because the piece discusses how Fred Trump had given his son $413 million over the years. This included tax avoidance schemes, which of course, lays bare one of Trump’s bigger fibs: that his wealth was “self-made.”

In her books and media appearances, Mary Trump hasn’t pulled any punches in her criticisms of her uncle and her extended family. And she didn’t seem particularly perturbed by the $100 million lawsuit.

“It’s desperation. The walls are closing in and he is throwing anything against the wall that he thinks will stick,” she said in the statement to NBC News. “As is always the case with Donald, he’ll try and change the subject.”

Her remarks are also being reported by other media outlets, including The Daily Beast, which reported her as calling her uncle “a f*cking loser.”

A spokesperson for Trump, when asked about Mary Trump’s comments and the lawsuit, said in an emailed statement to Newsweek that there is “more to come, including on other people, and Fake News media.”

In a statement shared to other media outlets, a spokesperson for the Times told Newsweek that reporting on Trump’s taxes “helped inform citizens through meticulous reporting on a subject of overriding public interest.”

“This lawsuit is an attempt to silence independent news organizations and we plan to vigorously defend against it.”

Mary Trump is the daughter of Donald’s brother, Fred Trump Jr., who died at age 42 in 1981. The lawsuit purports that Mary Trump obtained tens of thousands of pages of confidential documents via a legal case involving Fred Trump’s will.

In 2001, Mary Trump and other family members took part in a confidentiality and non-disclosure agreement that prohibits them from sharing details about Fred Trump’s estate, Newsweek reports. And Donald Trump’s brother Robert, who died in 2020, also intervened at one point, citing the 2001 agreement as an attempt to stop the publication of Mary Trump’s book Too Much and Never Enough: How My Family Created The World’s Most Dangerous Man. In her most recent work, an audio CD, The Reckoning, she describes Donald Trump as “an instinctive fascist.”

But the interesting thing here is that the lawsuit made no mention of another Times story, from 2020. That story reported that Trump had not paid income tax during 10 of the previous 15 years.

Of course, Trump has stubbornly refused to release his taxes in the 2016 or 2020 election. Perhaps he’s trying to avoid reminding voters of that little fact.

.@MaryLTrump tells @Lawrence that Donald Trump "must be feeling the walls closing in."

Watch more: https://t.co/tFSqKUgrnY#LastWord pic.twitter.com/hPsE5OtG5i

— The Last Word (@TheLastWord) January 7, 2022

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