Trump's brother tries again to block niece's tell-all book after failed attempt
Donald Trump’s brother is making a second attempt to block publication of the much-anticipated book by their niece Mary Trump, about “the damaged man who currently occupies the Oval Office”, shortly after his first lawsuit was dismissed.
Robert Trump’s attempt to stop Mary’s memoir Too Much and Never Enough was dismissed in a Queens county court in New York on 25 June, with surrogate court judge Peter Kelly calling the bid to stop the book “fatally defective”. However, Robert Trump filed another motion in New York State supreme court in Dutchess County on 26 June. As well as seeking to block publication, the lawsuit is looking for potential damages and for a declaration that Mary has breached the confidentiality agreement she signed in 2001, relating to litigation over her grandfather Fred Trump’s will.
Mary is a trained clinical psychologist and the daughter of Donald Trump’s late brother Fred Trump Jr, who died in 1981 from a heart attack after struggling with alcoholism. Her book, set to be published on 28 July, is reported to allege that both his father, Fred Sr, and Donald “contributed to his death and neglected him at critical stages of his addiction”.
Her publisher Simon & Schuster has claimed that Mary is “the only Trump willing to tell the truth about one of the world’s most powerful and dysfunctional families”.
Robert’s second lawsuit lays out the details of the confidentiality agreement Mary signed in 2001, saying it provided “that the parties who had objected to Fred Trump’s will, including Mary Trump … would not publish any account concerning the litigation or their relationship with each other”.
Acknowledging that Robert has not seen Mary’s forthcoming book, the lawsuit says it is clear from details provided to the media that the book will reveal that Mary provided the family’s confidential tax returns to the New York Times, as well as “insight into the supposed ‘inner workings’ of the Trump family”, “allegations that the late Fred Trump and the president neglected Mary’s father, Fred Trump Jr, supposedly contributing to his early death”, and “Mary Trump’s personal observations, allegedly informed by her training as a psychologist, about her supposedly ‘toxic’ family”.
A Trump family lawyer told the court in a memo that the family wanted to move fast to avoid “the situation presented in the recent case of United States v Bolton”, according to Publishers Weekly. The John Bolton case saw a federal judge decline to block the publication of the former national security adviser’s tell-all book, noting that hundreds of thousands of copies of The Room Where It Happened had already been shipped and excerpts had been published.
A letter from Mary’s lawyer to the court on 26 June said she would be fighting the motion to block publication.
“The First Amendment unquestionably protects Ms Trump’s right to participate in the electoral debate by writing and having published her work concerning the president’s character and fitness for office, and it independently protects the right of defendant Simon & Schuster, Inc, to publish it as well,” says the letter.