Trump Organization to pay Scotland $290K in legal fees over wind farm fight: report

The Trump Organization on Tuesday agreed to pay nearly $300,000 to the government of Scotland after a multiyear effort by the company to block construction of an offshore wind farm within view of one of the organization’s golf courses, according to The Washington Post.

“Expenses amounting to [$290,000] will now be paid to Scottish Ministers by the Petitioners,” a spokesman for the government said in a statement, according to the newspaper.

{mosads}The Trump Organization first sued the government to block the wind farm during its initial planning process, with President Trump saying the project would obstruct the view of “perhaps the greatest golf course anywhere in the world” and writing in a 2013 Scottish Mail on Sunday op-ed that he would “fight [former Scottish First Minister Alex Salmond] for as long as it takes — to hell if I have to — and spend as much as it takes to block this useless and grotesque blot on our heritage.”

In 2015, the U.K. Supreme Court unanimously ruled against the legal challenge, and the Trump Organization was ordered in February to pay the government’s legal fees. It took the next several months to agree to an exact amount.

Trump has frequently blasted wind power as both a private citizen and as president, wrongly claiming in speeches that it causes cancer and renders electronics unusable when the wind is not blowing.

The Hill has reached out to the Trump Organization for comment.