Trump family desperate to block Mary Trump's tell-all book that could do 'irreparable harm' to them
President Donald Trump has of late found himself bombarded by two publications that have taken him on and slammed him on professional and personal fronts. While former national security adviser John Bolton’s new White House memoir has come up with stunning revelations like Trump sought help from China to win the re-election this year, another yet-to-be tell-all publication from his niece Mary Trump is set to expose his personal life.
The issue has snowballed into a major prestige battle for the current first family as the Trumps have said that "no amount of monetary damages can ameliorate the loss” if the book’s release is given a nod, according to a Daily Mail report. The family has applied for a temporary restraining order saying it would suffer "irreparable harm" if Mary’s book 'Too Much and Never Enough: How My Family Created the World's Most Dangerous Man' is released on July 28, its scheduled date.
According to the family, Mary agreed not to write a memoir in 2001 under the terms of a settlement which ended a family dispute over the estate of Fred Trump Sr, the father of the president. As per the agreement, since Trump is famous and his sister Maryanne is a federal judge, “the family made the decision collectively to enter into an agreement that would maintain the confidentiality of the family's private matters”, the report added.
The Trumps have now urged a judge in Queens, New York, to issue the restraining order against Mary, a 55-year-old clinical psychologist, and sought for a hearing on July 31, three days after the book is set to see the light of the day.
Debate arises over First Amendment
The application also raised a debate over the First Amendment with Mary and her publisher Simon & Schuster who have also taken care of Bolton’s book. Theodore Boutros, the publisher’s attorney, has argued that the Trumps were "pursuing this unlawful prior restraint because they do not want the public to know the truth."
In one of the blurbs of her upcoming publication, Mary describes a “nightmare of traumas, destructive relationships and a tragic combination of neglect and abuse."
Mary is one of two children of Fred Trump Jr, the older brother of the president who died in 1982 at the age of 42 due to alcoholism. When her grandfather died in 1999, she and her brother Fred Trump III challenged the patriarch's will claiming the Trump family used unethical influence to cut them out. Mary alleged that in a lawsuit that the Trumps curbed the healthcare of her side in the family.
While President Trump recently threatened to take legal action against Mary, his younger brother Robert Trump sued her to stop her tell-all book from coming out. The last time Mary spoke about her family publicly was 20 years ago in an article for the New York Daily News. There, she said Donald and his siblings “should be ashamed of themselves."
The Trumps will, however, be keeping their fingers crossed over how things unfold in relation to Mary’s publication. The administration made a similar effort to block Bolton’s book but the court refused to oblige since the contents of the book had already been leaked.