Judge gives go-ahead to tell-all book by Trump's niece

  • Published
Pictures of Trump's parents, seen in the White House Oval OfficeImage source, Getty Images
Image caption,

Pictures of Donald Trump's parents, seen in the White House's Oval Office

A New York court ruled a publisher can release President Donald Trump's niece's tell-all memoir about the US first family.

Mary Trump's book, Too Much and Never Enough, How My Family Created the World's Most Dangerous Man, is due for publication on 28 July.

Wednesday's ruling reverses a lower court's decision to award a restraining order to Ms Trump's uncle.

But the book may yet not be published due to a confidentiality agreement.

Ms Trump is still bound by an agreement she signed in 2001 after an argument about a family inheritance. It was put in place to protect the family's privacy, external, the New York Times said.

But the judge on Wednesday said the agreement could have altered by the fact that Donald Trump has since become president.

Image source, Trump Campaign
Image caption,

An undated photo of the Trump siblings, from left to right: Robert, Elizabeth, Fred, Donald and Maryanne

It was concluded that the book's publishers, Simon & Schuster, could not be bound by the confidentiality agreement, allowing them to continue to prepare for the book's release.

The publisher said in a statement: "We support Mary L Trump's right to tell her story in Too Much and Never Enough, a work of great interest and importance to the national discourse that fully deserves to be published for the benefit of the American public."

A hearing is scheduled for 10 July to discuss the confidentiality agreement.

Ms Trump, 55, is the daughter of President Trump's elder brother, Fred Trump Jr, who died in 1981.

The book claims to reveal "a nightmare of traumas, destructive relationships, and a tragic combination of neglect and abuse".

Earlier this month, President Trump said that his niece was violating her non-disclosure agreement (NDA) by writing a book.

"She's not allowed to write a book," he told Axios, referring to a 20-year legal document she reportedly signed in 2001 following a dispute over her father's estate after his death.

Mr Trump called the NDA a "very powerful one" that "covers everything".

What does the book say?

The book was scheduled to hit shelves only weeks before the Republican National Convention, where Mr Trump will accept his party's nomination to seek a second term.

The memoir will reportedly reveal how Ms Trump supplied the New York Times with confidential documents to print a sprawling investigation into Mr Trump's personal finances.

The Pulitzer Prize-winning exclusive alleged the president had been involved in "fraudulent" tax schemes and received more than $400m (£316m) in today's money from his father's real estate empire.

A lawyer for the president and the White House denied the allegations of fraud and tax evasion made against Mr Trump.

An Amazon blurb for Ms Trump's book says the author will set out how her uncle "became the man who now threatens the world's health, economic security and social fabric".

This is the second book by publisher Simon & Schuster that Mr Trump and his associates are seeking to block.

Earlier this month, the US justice department was denied an injunction to block a memoir by John Bolton, President Trump's former National Security Adviser.

The Room Where It Happened is due to go on sale later this month. One of the book's claims is that Mr Trump "pleaded" with the Chinese president to help him win the November 2020 election.