Former President Donald Trump once tried to pay his lawyer with a horse, according to a new book.
The surreal claim is documented in “Servants of the Damned: Giant Law Firms, Donald Trump and the Corruption of Justice” by New York Times financial editor David Enrich.
In the book, Enrich writes that after Trump offered to pay the lawyer with a horse he told him was worth $5 million, “once he regained the capacity for speech,” the lawyer “stammered … ‘This isn’t the 1800s. You can’t pay me with a horse.’”
The scene allegedly took place in the 1990s with Trump on the hook for $2 million in legal fees.
The book details that when the lawyer showed up unexpectedly at Trump Tower to demand Trump pay his legal bill, Trump replied: ″I’m not going to pay your bill. I’m going to give you something more valuable.”
“What on earth is he talking about? the lawyer wondered. ‘I have a stallion,’ Trump continued. ‘It’s worth $5 million.’ Trump rummaged around in a filing cabinet and pulled out what he said was a deed to a horse. He handed it to the lawyer.”
The lawyer reportedly rebuffed Trump’s overture and threatened to sue.
Eventually, Trump “coughed up at least a portion of what he owed,” the book contends.
Trump has been accused in the past on multiple occasions of failing to pay attorney fees, including allegedly refusing to pay Rudy Giuliani millions for his services in the aftermath of the 2020 election.