The legal battle over Mary Trump’s book took another turn Thursday when lawyers filed papers to remove a temporary restraining order, arguing that the confidentiality agreement she signed 19 years ago was an unenforceable fraud.
Trump’s niece says that when she signed the agreement she believed the asset amounts in it were accurate, but has since learned from a New York Times expose the figures were bogus.
In addition, she said that she did not believe the agreement would have barred her from telling her “life story”—which just happens to include details of “the conduct and character of my uncle, the sitting President of the United States.”
And, she noted, President Trump “has spoken out about our family and the will dispute on numerous occasions”—suggesting that would have rendered any secrecy agreement void.
“None of the parties to the Settlement Agreement, including my uncles Donald Trump and Robert Trump, or my aunt Maryanne Trump, has ever sought my permission to speak publicly about our family or their personal relationships with me, my brother Fred, or among each other,” she wrote.
In the book, which is scheduled for release on July 28 and is already #1 on Amazon’s book list, Mary Trump discloses how Trump received more than $400 million in today’s dollars from his father’s real estate empire and had been involved in “fraudulent” tax schemes.
Robert Trump secured a temporary restraining order against the book publisher and Mary last month, and an appeals court tossed the order against the publisher this week. Mary is now arguing for the restraining order against her to be lifted as well.
Mary Trump is the 55-year-old niece of Donald Trump. Her father was Fred Trump Jr. who died in 1981 at age 42 from a heart attack induced by alcoholism. See Forbes.
Source info at Daily Beast.