Donald Trump wants niece Mary's 'conspiracy-laden' fraud suit dismissed, calls it a 'decades-long sinister plot'
POTUS Donald Trump says that his niece Mary Trump's lawsuit against the family is 'conspiracy' ridden and is just part of a plan to make some money off the family name, court papers reveal. In a September 2020 lawsuit, Mary had accused Trump, his sister Maryanne and his late brother Robert of swindling her out of tens of millions of dollars in inheritance money.
Trump and the executor for Robert's estate are requesting a judge to throw out the lawsuit. They claim that the lawsuit is time-barred and "laden with conspiracy theories more befitting a Hollywood screenplay than a pleading in a legal action", as per court papers which were filed on Monday, January 4.
What was in Mary Trump's lawsuit?
Mary, 55, is a US psychologist, businesswoman and author. She has said that her aunts and uncles schemed together to cut her out of her inheritance when her father Fred Trump Jr died in 1981 and later her grandfather Fred Trump Sr in 1999. The lawsuit was filed in a New York court and argued that President Trump and his siblings should be tried on eight counts, including fraudulent misrepresentation and concealment, and civil conspiracy.
She had also claimed that the three had allegedly siphoned money from her inherited business interests and had tried to cover them up as legit business transactions. She maintained that they had also made her interests appear to be worth much less than they actually were via bogus appraisals and financial statements and also allegedly threatened her into signing an agreement that cut herself out of her grandfather's estate.
Trump calls it a 'decades-long sinister plot' by Mary Trump
However, Trump has slammed these claims by Mary and said that she made up "a decades-long sinister plot" which showed "herself as the unknowing and unsophisticated victim" when she had actually "orchestrated a sophisticated plan to exact retribution for decades-old, previously litigated family grievances to further her own political agenda and cash in on her family name".
He also says that in the new documents, his niece's suit is merely an attempt "to get a second bite at the apple" at a time when there is "political bias" against her aunt and uncles. The Trump team says that it is disingenuous for Mary to make such claims where she only discovered the 'alleged scheme' after a New York Times story that was published on the matter in October 2018. He says she was fully aware of the agreement she signed when she settled with her grandfather’s estate in 2001.
As per the court filing, "At no time was [Mary] forced to relinquish her interests in the family businesses during this litigation."
Mary's lawyer Roberta Kaplan spoke in a statement and said, "While it is true that Mary Trump is surely no fan of Donald Trump or his administration’s policies, that intra-family fraud is what this case is about. And the Trump siblings’ argument that Mary’s complaint comes too late makes no sense since the facts that the Trumps were engaged in such misconduct only came to light recently as a result of the important reporting by journalists at the New York Times and elsewhere."
We had earlier reported that Mary believed that Trump was 'gaslighting himself' into believing all his lies regarding the 2020 election which he lost to President-elect Joe Biden. In a recent interview with VICE News, the clinical psychologist and a strong critic of her uncle said, "He's the only person I've ever met who can gaslight himself."
"I don't think he's ever accepted the truth of the loss. I don't think he's psychologically or emotionally capable of that."
Mary, in July 2020, released a tell-all memoir about the president titled 'Too Much and Never Enough: How My Family Created the World's Most Dangerous Man',. It describes her uncle, the president as a "narcissist" who now threatens the life of every American.