Fresh from one legal defeat, the Trump family is taking another stab at halting publication of presidential niece Mary Trump’s upcoming tell-all.
Lawyers acting on behalf of President Donald Trump’s brother, Robert—who was in an intensive-care unit just days ago—refiled for a temporary restraining order against the Too Much and Never Enough: How My Family Created the World’s Most Dangerous Man in Dutchess County, New York.
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The new legal maneuver comes a day after a judge in Queens Surrogate Court tossed an attempt by Robert Trump’s celebrity attorney, Charles Harder, to stop explosive family secrets being printed, citing “several improprieties” in the filing that rendered it “fatally defective.”
Robert Trump resides in Dutchess County and President Trump owns a golf course there. Court documents in Dutchess reviewed by The Daily Beast show Trump’s younger brother and his ex-wife Blaine Trump received a $1.5 million mortgage in 1992 from late family patriarch Fred Trump, which was discharged after Fred’s death. The records show the president’s companies—particularly his ill-fated casinos—have repeatedly used Dutchess County courts as a venue for debt-related legal battles.
As The Daily Beast was the first to report, Mary Trump, 55, is expected to “out” herself in the book as the primary source for The New York Times’ Pulitzer Prize-winning Trump tax investigation as well as detail how her uncle and grandfather treated her dad, Fred Trump Jr., as he battled alcoholism.
The book, due out July 28, published by Simon & Schuster, is also set to air disparaging remarks the president’s sister, Maryanne, a former federal court judge, has made about her brother in private about his time in The White House.
The Trumps’ initial effort to silence Mary, like the one just filed, argued that her book—as described in The Daily Beast and various promotional materials—violated a confidentiality clause in the settlement agreement she signed regarding the disposition of Fred Trump Sr.'s estate. But in his decision Thursday, Queens County Surrogate Court Judge Peter Kelly ruled the family was waging the fight in the wrong court.
“Under the scenario presented, it cannot be successfully argued this dispute affects the administration of the decedent's estate," Kelly wrote. “The irrefutable conclusion is, regardless of the outcome of this matter, the administration of this estate will not be impacted one iota.”
“Accordingly, the matter is dismissed,” he ruled.
Robert Trump’s new filing in Dutchess County presents Kelly’s decision as its Exhibit A.
In an interview with the website Axios published on Sunday, President Trump said his niece was “not allowed to write a book.”
"You know, when we settled with her and her brother, who I do have a good relationship with—she's got a brother, Fred, who I do have a good relationship with, but when we settled, she has a total... signed a nondisclosure.”
