A New York judge dismissed a legal challenge to the publication of Mary Trump’s revealing book about her family on Monday, the day before its scheduled release.
In a 20-page ruling, Dutchess County Supreme Court Justice Hal Greenwald said President Donald Trump’s brother Robert’s offer to block publication of his niece’s book was not legally approved, noting that the news that the content of the book had already “reached millions of people because of the tremendous attention it has gained through the media.”
The ruling was issued the night before Mary Trump’s book, “Too Much and Never Enough, How My Family Created the Most Dangerous Man in the World,” goes on sale in bookstores.
“The court was successful in rejecting the efforts of the Trump family to silence Mary Trump’s central political discourse on important issues of public interest,” Trump’s attorney, Ted Boutrous, said in a statement. “Tomorrow, the American public will be able to read Mary’s important words for themselves.”
The publisher of the book, Simon & Schuster, said in a statement: “The unlimited right to publish is an American sacred freedom and a founding principle of our republic, and we applaud the Court for affirming well-established precedents against prior restriction and publication. previous judicial orders. “
Robert Trump, the president’s younger brother, sued last month to block publication of the book, arguing that it violated a confidentiality agreement that Mary Trump had signed to end a legal fight with the president and her siblings. The court battle involved a fight over the assets of the late president’s father, Fred Trump. Mary Trump and her brother alleged that the President and her brothers deprived them of their fair share of the inheritance.
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Greenwald said that “at the time the Settlement was agreed, the Trump family were New York-based real estate developers and not much else. They were not elected officials or television personalities.”
The judge said Robert Trump’s claim that the deal prohibited Mary Trump from writing about his family was too broad, and noted that he did not explain how publishing the book would harm him, as his court filing claimed.
“His allegations are unfounded and conclusive,” the judge wrote.
Greenwald had signed a temporary restraining order against Simon & Schuster, but an appeals court judge reversed the order. In her ruling Monday, Greenwald issued a similar order against Mary Trump.
The judge noted that thousands of copies of the book had already been sent to stores, and referred to another court’s decision on the president’s failed attempt to block publication of a book by John Bolton, his former national security adviser.
“Comparing the enormous potential cost and logistical nightmare of stopping publishing, remembering and deleting hundreds of thousands of books from all kinds of booksellers, bricks and mortars, and virtual libraries and private citizens, is an insurmountable task at the moment. States v Bolton … “From the looks of it, the horse is not alone outside the stable, it is outside the country,” Greenwald wrote.
