Trump family say that 'no amount of money' can undo the damage that will be done if the president's niece Mary Trump is allowed to publish her bombshell tell-all book
By Daniel Bates
Daily Mail
June 24, 2020
The Trump family have claimed that 'no
amount of monetary damages can ameliorate the loss' if Mary Trump is
allowed to publish her tell-all book about them.
In
their application for a temporary restraining order, the Trumps said
that they would suffer 'irreparable harm' if Mary's book is released
next month as planned.
They argued that
Mary agreed not to write a memoir back in 2001 under the terms of a
settlement which resolved a bitter family dispute over the estate of
family patriarch Fred Trump Sr.
The agreement said that due to Donald Trump
being famous and his sister Maryanne being a federal judge 'the family
made the decision collectively to enter into an agreement that would
maintain the confidentiality of the family's private matters'.
The Trumps are asking a judge in Queens,
New York, to issue a temporary restraining order against Mary and for a
hearing on July 31, three days after the book is due to be published.
The application sets up a First Amendment clash with Mary and her publishers Simon & Schuster.
Their
lawyer Theodore Boutrous has said that the Trumps are 'pursuing this
unlawful prior restraint because they do not want the public to know the
truth'.
He said: 'The courts will not tolerate this brazen violation of the First Amendment'.
Mary's book is due to be called: 'Too Much and Never Enough: How My Family Created the World's Most Dangerous Man'.
The
blurb says that Mary, 55, a psychologist, describes a 'nightmare of
traumas, destructive relationships, and a tragic combination of neglect
and abuse'.
Mary is one of two children by Fred Trump Jr, the President's older brother who died in 1982 aged 42 after battling alcoholism.
When
Fred Sr died in 1999, Mary and her brother Fred Trump III challenged
his will because they claimed that the Trump family exerted undue
influence to cut them out.
Mary claimed in a lawsuit that in retaliation the Trumps ended the healthcare for her side of the family.
In
the application for the restraining order, which was filed in the
Queen's Surrogate Court, which oversaw Fred Sr's probate, the Trumps say
that everything was resolved in 2001 under a 'global' agreement.
The application states: 'Confidentiality was at the essence of the settlement agreement.
'Fred
Trump Sr had been a famous figure in New York real estate. Fred's son
Donald also had become a famous real estate developer.
'Fred's daughter, Judge Barry, was a judge for the United States Court of Appeals for the Third Circuit.
'The
court cases involving Fred Trump Sr's will had received extensive
publicity and the family made the decision collectively to enter into an
agreement that would maintain the confidentiality of the family's
private matters'.
The financial terms
have been blacked out and there are nine pages including sections on
ground leases, a Trump-owned company and trusts set up in 1976.
The application does however note that Mary received a 'substantial' amount of money.
As
part of the agreement Mary agreed to not 'directly or indirectly
publish or cause to be published any diary, memoir, letter, story,
photograph, interview, article, essay, account or description or
deficient of any kind whatsoever, whether fictionalized or not,
concerning their litigation with (the Trumps) or assist or provide
information to others in connection therewith', the application states.
The only exception would be if Donald, Maryanne and their brother Robert gave consent.
Yet in an affidavit Robert Trump says that he 'never consented' to let Mary write her book.
The
application states that under the agreement, if somebody breaches the
2001 settlement they agree that a temporary restraining order can be
taken out against them.
It requests
unspecified damages but notes: 'No amount of monetary damages can
ameliorate the loss that will be suffered if Mary Trump is allowed to
violate the settlement agreement and publish'.
The Trumps argue that an emergency injunction is needed because books are often sent to book stores weeks ahead of publication.
They
appear to have learned the lessons from the book by Donald's former
national security adviser John Bolton, which was hugely embarrassing for
the President.
They went to court to
stop 'The Room Where It Happened' from being published but a judge
refused because much of it had already been made public through leaks.
The
last time Mary spoke publicly about her family was 20 years ago in an
article for the New York Daily News in which she said Donald and his
siblings 'should be ashamed of themselves'.
She
was reportedly the source for a New York Times investigation into the
President in 2018 which demolished his image as a self made man.
In fact Donald received at least $413million from his father and was a millionaire by the time he was eight.
Mary's
Twitter feed is an indication of what the tone of her book will be like
and she called her uncle's election victory in 2016 the 'worst night of
my life'.
No comments:
Post a Comment