Trump's niece Mary's tell-all book gets green signal for release after judge lifts temporary restraining order
Weeks after a tell-all memoir by former national security adviser John Bolton hit him hard, President Donald Trump is set to meet another embarrassment. A New York appeals court judge on Wednesday, July 1, gave a green signal to the publisher of a controversial new book penned by Trump’s niece Mary to release it. Judge Alan D Scheinkman reversed a lower court’s decision a day ago which put a temporary restraining order on the tell-all publication -- 'Too Much and Never Enough: How My Family Created the World’s Most Dangerous Man' -- set to be released on July 28.
The appeals court judge ruled the publisher, Simon & Schuster, wasn’t restricted by a non-disclosure agreement that Mary signed as part of a dispute over the 1999 will of Fred Trump Sr, the father of the president who passed away that year. “Unlike Ms. Trump. S&S has not agreed to surrender or relinquish any of its First Amendment rights,” Justice Scheinkman wrote.
“While Ms Trump unquestionably possesses the same First Amendment expressive rights belonging to all Americans, she also possesses the right to enter into contracts, including the right to contract away her First Amendment rights,” the judge also said in his verdict. The Trump family was left worried by Mary’s upcoming book and it said recently that no amount of money could compensate for the harm it would create to its reputation. Last month, Trump’s brother Robert filed a lawsuit to permanently block Mary’s book, a day after a New York state court rejected on jurisdictional grounds his first attempt to block its release. He also sued the publisher.
Mary Trump book publisher welcomes latest court ruling
Jonathan Karp, the CEO of Simon & Schuster, said in an affidavit on Tuesday, June 30, that his firm was not aware that the author had signed the agreement and that the publisher had already printed 75,000 copies of the book and dispatched them. The publisher welcomed the latest ruling and said the book was of “great interest and importance to the national discourse that fully deserves to be published for the benefit of the American public.”
“As all know, there are well-established precedents against prior restraint and pre-publication injunctions, and we remain confident that the preliminary injunction will be denied.” On Tuesday, Judge Hal B Greenwald at the Dutchess County Court sought a temporary stay on ‘publishing, printing or distributing’ any copies of the book ahead of a hearing on July 10. The Trumps launched legal action to block the release of the book by Mary, a 55-year-old clinical psychologist, which describes a "nightmare of traumas, destructive relationships, and a tragic combination of neglect and abuse."
Mary is one of two children of Fred Trump Junior, the president’s older brother who died in his early 40s in 1981 due to alcoholism. When their grandfather died, Mary and her brother Fred Trump III challenged his will claiming the Trumps used its influence to end healthcare for their side of the family. The Trump administration also tried to stop the release of Bolton’s book saying the former NSA violated confidentiality but the court refused to assist the president saying the contents of the book had already been leaked.