Trump niece's book blocked by New York judge but lawyer files appeal
Mary Trump filed an immediate appeal on Tuesday, after a judge in New York issued a preliminary injunction to stop Donald Trump’s niece publishing a book about the family.
Related: The Room Where It Happened review: John Bolton fires broadside that could sink Trump
The president’s brother, Robert Trump, is attempting to stop the publication of Too Much and Never Enough: How My Family Created the World’s Most Dangerous Man, which is due for publication by Simon & Schuster on 28 July.
Simon & Schuster recently published The Room Where It Happened, former national security adviser John Bolton’s tell-all memoir which a federal judge declined to block. The publisher also appealed the New York ruling against it and Mary Trump.
In a statement, Ted Boutrous, a lawyer for Mary Trump, called the order in New York supreme court in Dutchess county “a prior restraint on core political speech that flatly violates the first amendment”.
The book, he said, “addresses matters of great public concern and importance about a sitting president in election year [and] should not be suppressed even for one day”.
Charles Harder, an attorney for Robert Trump, said he would seek the “maximum remedies available” for what he called Mary Trump’s “truly reprehensible” actions.
“Short of corrective action to immediately cease their egregious conduct,” he added, “we will pursue this case to the very end.”
Judge Hal B Greenwald scheduled a further hearing for Poughkeepsie, New York, on 10 July.
Mary Trump is a trained psychologist who was reportedly a source for New York Times reporting on Trump family tax affairs and who has expressed opposition to her uncle on Twitter.
Her publisher has promised a “revelatory, authoritative portrait of Donald J Trump and the toxic family that made him” and “a nightmare of traumas, destructive relationships, and a tragic combination of neglect and abuse”.
The book is eagerly awaited. But in 2001, Mary Trump signed a non-disclosure agreement concerning litigation over a family will, which said she was not allowed to discuss relations with her aunts and uncles.
Donald Trump’s surviving siblings are Robert Trump, a businessman; Maryanne Trump Barry, a retired judge; and Elizabeth Trump Grau, a retired banker. Mary Trump’s father was Fred Trump Jr, who died in 1981.
Judge Greenwald’s order precludes the “publishing, printing or distributing, directly or indirectly” of anything “containing any descriptions or accounts of Mary L Trump’s relationship with Robert S Trump, Donald Trump or Maryanne Trump Barry”.
Robert Trump’s first attempt to block the book failed, the judge recommending recourse to the state supreme court.
In a statement to the New York Times earlier this month, Robert Trump slammed his niece for what he called her “attempt to sensationalise and mischaracterise our family relationship … for her own financial gain”.
“I and the rest of my entire family,” he said, “are so proud of my wonderful brother, the president.”
Donald Trump told the news site Axios his niece was “not allowed to write a book”.
