Green light for niece’s critical book on Trump
MARY TRUMP can talk about the highly critical book she wrote about her uncle, Donald Trump, despite objections from the president’s brother.
It comes after a ruling was made by a US judge who lifted an order which had blocked her from publicising or distributing her work.
State Supreme Court Judge Hal B Greenwald, in Poughkeepsie, New York, rejected arguments by Robert Trump that Ms Trump is blocked from talking about family members publicly by an agreement relatives made to settle the estate of her father after his death.
The judge said the confidentiality clauses in the 2001 agreement, “viewed in the context of the current Trump family circumstances in 2020, would ‘offend public policy as a prior restraint on protected speech”.’
“Notwithstanding that the book has been published and distributed in great quantities, to enjoin Mary L Trump at this juncture would be incorrect and serve no purpose. It would be moot,” he wrote. Judge
Greenwald said the confidentiality agreement that settled multiple lawsuits mainly concerned the financial aspect of the deal, which is not as interesting now as it might have been two decades ago.
“On the other hand the non-confidential part of the agreement, the Trump family relationships may be more interesting now in 2020 with a presidential election on the horizon,” he said.
He also wrote that Robert Trump had not shown any damage that the book’s publication would cause himself or the public.
Robert Trump is not frequently mentioned in the book, which seeks to trace how family members were affected by the president’s father, a successful real estate owner, and how the president may have developed some of the traits that have been most apparent at the White House.
Ms Trump, a trained psychologist and Donald Trump’s only niece, wrote in the book that she had “no problem calling Donald a narcissist – he meets all nine criteria as outlined in the Diagnostic And Statistical Manual Of Mental Disorders”.
The judge reversed orders he had issued temporarily blocking Ms Trump and her publisher, Simon & Schuster, from publishing or distributing a tell-all book about the president. An appeals judge had already lifted the order blocking Simon & Schuster.
The book, Too Much And Never
Enough: How My Family Created The World’s Most Dangerous Man, was originally due to be published at the end of July.
The publisher announced last week that it would be published yesterday.
Meanwhile, a judge has demanded more information about Mr Trump’s decision to commute the prison sentence of ally and friend Roger Stone.
US District Judge Amy Berman Jackson ordered the parties provide her with a copy of the executive order that commuted Stone’s sentence and clarity on the scope of the order.
Stone was convicted as part of special counsel Robert Mueller’s Russia investigation of making false statements, tampering with a witness and obstructing politicians who were examining Russian interference in the 2016 election.
Mr Trump commuted the 40-month sentence handed to Stone on Friday evening, just days before he was to report to prison.