NEW From yearning for a change to cost of living, why some Canadians have left or may leave the country
For some immigrants, their dreams of permanently settling in Canada have taken an unexpected twist.
Former U.S. President Donald Trump on Tuesday sued his estranged niece and The New York Times over a 2018 story about his family's wealth and tax practices that was partly based on confidential documents she provided to the newspaper's reporters.
Trump's lawsuit, filed in state court in New York, accuses Mary Trump of breaching a settlement agreement by disclosing tax records she received in a dispute over family patriarch Fred Trump's estate.
The lawsuit accuses the Times and three of its investigative reporters, Susanne Craig, David Barstow and Russell Buettner, of relentlessly seeking out Mary Trump as a source of information and convincing her to turn over documents. The suit claims the reporters were aware the settlement agreement barred her from disclosing the documents.
The Times' story challenged Trump's claims of self-made wealth by documenting how his father, Fred, had given him at least US$413 million over the decades, including through tax avoidance schemes.
Mary Trump identified herself in a book published last year as the source of the documents provided to the Times.
Trump's lawsuit alleges Mary Trump, the Times and its reporters "were motivated by a personal vendetta" against him and a desire to push a political agenda.
The defendants "engaged in an insidious plot to obtain confidential and highly-sensitive records which they exploited for their own benefit and utilized as a means of falsely legitimizing their publicized works," the lawsuit said.
In a statement to NBC News, Mary Trump said of her uncle, "I think he is a loser, and he is going to throw anything against the wall he can. It's desperation. The walls are closing in and he is throwing anything against the wall that he thinks will stick. As is always the case with Donald, he'll try and change the subject."
A Times spokesperson, Danielle Rhoads Ha, said the lawsuit "is an attempt to silence independent news organizations and we plan to vigorously defend against it."
The Times' coverage of Trump's taxes, she said, "helped inform citizens through meticulous reporting on a subject of overriding public interest."
One of the Times reporters, Craig, responded in a tweet: "I knocked on Mary Trump's door. She opened it. I think they call that journalism."
Trump is seeking $100 million in damages.
Trump filed his lawsuit almost a year to the day after Mary Trump sued him over allegations that he and two of his siblings cheated her out of millions of dollars over several decades while squeezing her out of the family business.
That case is pending.
Mary Trump, 56, is the daughter of Donald Trump's brother, Fred Trump Jr., who died in 1981 at age 42. Mary Trump was 16 at the time.
Trump's lawsuit focuses only on the Times' 2018 story, a Pulitzer Prize winner for explanatory reporting. It makes no mention of another Times scoop on Trump's taxes last year, which found he paid no federal income taxes in 10 of the previous 15 years.
According to the lawsuit, Mary Trump came into possession of more than 40,000 pages of "highly sensitive, proprietary, private and confidential documents" through a legal case involving Fred Trump's will.
The documents including financial records, accountings, tax returns, bank statements, and legal papers pertaining to Donald Trump, Fred Trump and their businesses, Trump's lawsuit said.
In 2001, about two years after Fred Trump died, Mary Trump and other family members entered into a settlement agreement with confidentiality and non-disclosure clauses that barred them from sharing information about Fred Trump's estate in, among other venues, newspaper stories, Trump's lawsuit said. The agreement also covered the estate of Fred's wife, Mary Anne Trump, who died in 2000.
Trump, who bashed the Times repeatedly during his presidency as the "failing New York Times," noted in the lawsuit that the 2018 article was viewed more online than any previous Times article and that the New York Times Company's stock price jumped 7.4% the week it ran.
The Times' story said that Donald Trump and his father avoided gift and inheritance taxes by methods including setting up a sham corporation and undervaluing assets to tax authorities. The Times says its report was based on more than 100,000 pages of financial documents, including confidential tax returns from the father and his companies.
Mary Trump's book, "Too Much and Never Enough: How My Family Created the World's Most Dangerous Man," debuted in the midst of Donald Trump's re-election campaign last year. Donald Trump's brother, Robert, tried unsuccessfully to have a court block the book's publication, citing the 2001 settlement agreement.
Ruling in Mary Trump's favour, a judge said the confidentiality clauses, "viewed in the context of the current Trump family circumstances in 2020, would offend public policy as a prior restraint on protected speech."
In the book, Mary Trump recounted providing the family financial records that underlaid the Times' reporting. The book sold more than 1.3 million copies in its first week and soaring to No. 1 on the Times' bestseller list.
In an interview connected with the release of the book, Mary Trump told ABC's George Stephanopoulos she didn't feel the non-disclosure agreement "mattered one way or the other because what I have to say is too important."
For some immigrants, their dreams of permanently settling in Canada have taken an unexpected twist.
Studies have shown that ultraprocessed foods can have a detrimental impact on health. But 30 years of research show they don’t all have the same impact.
Forging ahead with increasing Canada's capital gains inclusion rate 'sows division,' and is a 'shortsighted' way to improve the deficit, business groups are warning Finance Minister Chrystia Freeland.
An Ontario man considering having his driveway paved received a quote from a company for $7,000, but then, another paver in the neighbourhood knocked on his door and offered half that rate.
Stormy Daniels will return to the witness stand Thursday in Donald Trump's hush money trial as the defence tries to undermine the credibility of the porn actor's salacious testimony about their alleged sexual encounter and the money she was paid to keep quiet.
Amid evidence of rising breast cancer rates among young women in Canada, one Toronto startup is offering a contactless and radiation-free device that can help doctors identify suspicious changes in breast tissue. The company, Linda Lifetech, says this can lead to earlier detection of breast cancer.
Forecasters warned a wave of dangerous storms in the U.S. could wash over parts of the South early Thursday, a day after severe weather with damaging tornadoes and large hail killed at least three people in the region.
Toronto police say a man was taken into custody outside Drake's Bridle Path mansion Wednesday afternoon after he tried to gain access to the residence.
There is currently a whooping cough epidemic in Europe, with 10 times as many cases compared to the previous two years. While an outbreak has not been declared nationwide in Canada, whooping cough is regularly detected in the country.
The stakes have been set for a bet between Vancouver and Edmonton's mayors on who will win Round 2 of the Stanley Cup playoffs.
A grieving mother is hosting a helmet drive in the hopes of protecting children on Manitoba First Nations from a similar tragedy that killed her daughter.
A chicken farmer near Mattawa made an 'eggstraordinary' find Friday morning when she discovered one of her hens laid an egg close to three times the size of an average large chicken egg.
A P.E.I. lighthouse and a New Brunswick river are being honoured in a Canada Post series.
An Ontario man says he paid more than $7,700 for a luxury villa he found on a popular travel website -- but the listing was fake.
Whether passionate about Poirot or hungry for Holmes, Winnipeg mystery obsessives have had a local haunt for over 30 years in which to search out their latest page-turners.
Eighty-two-year-old Susan Neufeldt and 90-year-old Ulrich Richter are no spring chickens, but their love blossomed over the weekend with their wedding at Pine View Manor just outside of Rosthern.
Alberta Ballet's double-bill production of 'Der Wolf' and 'The Rite of Spring' marks not only its final show of the season, but the last production for twin sisters Alexandra and Jennifer Gibson.
A mother goose and her goslings caused a bit of a traffic jam on a busy stretch of the Trans-Canada Highway near Vancouver Saturday.