An appellate judge in New York has lifted a restraining order blocking the publication of an explosive, tell-all book from President Donald Trump’s niece, Mary.
The New York Times reports: The decision by the judge, Alan D. Scheinkman, means that Simon & Schuster can move forward in publishing the book, “Too Much and Never Enough: How My Family Created the World’s Most Dangerous Man,” which is scheduled to be released at the end of July. In court papers filed on Tuesday, Simon & Schuster claimed that tens of thousands of copies of the book had already been printed, adding that it is a best seller on Amazon. Justice Scheinkman’s ruling, however, put off addressing a central aspect of the bitter spat about the manuscript that has been roiling all month in the Trump family: whether, by writing the book, Ms. Trump violated a confidentiality agreement put in place nearly 20 years ago after a struggle over the will of her grandfather, Fred Trump Sr., Donald Trump’s father. In his decision, Justice Scheinkman ruled that Simon & Schuster was not a party to — and thus could not be bound by — the confidentiality agreement, which was signed by Ms. Trump, Donald Trump and the president’s two siblings, Robert S. Trump and Maryanne Trump Barry.
More from the Washington Post: A description of the book from the publisher suggests it will draw heavily on her studies of family dysfunction, with Mary, who is 55, using her clinical background as a psychologist to dissect “a nightmare of traumas, destructive relationships and a tragic combination of neglect and abuse,” including “the strange and harmful relationship between” her late father and Donald Trump. A key part of the book is expected to be the circumstances of how her father — President Trump’s older brother, Fred Jr. — died of an alcohol-related illness when she was 16 years old in 1981, an event that President Trump has also said shaped him. After Mary Trump’s grandfather Fred Sr. died in 1999, she and her brother Fred III waged a fight against others in the Trump family over their inheritance, asserting that they were being given far less than expected. The dispute was settled confidentially in 2001, and Robert Trump cited that agreement in saying Mary Trump had agreed not to publish anything about the family.
