Mary Trump can talk of book: judge
So much for suing Mary Trump into silence.
A state judge ruled Monday that President Trump’s niece can talk publicly about the explosive tell-all book she wrote about her uncle, a day before the book’s release date.
Dutchess County Supreme Court Judge Hal Greenwald shot down a claim by Trump’s brother, Robert, that an agreement to settle her father’s estate after his death means she’s blocked from talking about her family members — including the president — publicly.
The book, “Too Much and Never Enough: How My Family Created the World’s Most Dangerous Man,” describes Trump as a cruel bully, a consummate cheater and a sociopath, shaped by his emotionally abusive father, Fred Trump Sr.
“If he is afforded a second term, it would be the end of American democracy,” Mary Trump (inset) wrote. “Donald, following the lead of my grandfather and with complicity, silence, and inaction from his siblings, destroyed my father. I can’t let him destroy my country.”
The book was set to be published at the end of July, but publisher Simon & Schuster announced last week it would be released Tuesday.
In a 20-page decision Monday, Greenwald reversed his earlier orders that temporarily blocked Mary Trump and the publisher from publishing or distributing the book. An appeals judge had already lifted the order blocking Simon & Schuster.
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 Trump at this juncture would be incorrect and serve no purpose. It would be moot,” the judge wrote.