Trump's niece's memoir, which describes a "nightmare of traumas," is cleared for release
Earlier this week, a judge temporarily blocked the release of a new tell-all memoir from President Trump’s niece, Mary, on the grounds of violating a prior confidentiality agreement. On Wednesday, a New York appellate judge ruled that the book’s publisher Simon & Schuster can go ahead with its release, blocking the lower court’s decision. Trump’s book, Too Much and Never Enough: How My Family Created the World’s Most Dangerous Man, is now slated for a July 28 release and currently holds the top spot on Amazon’s bestsellers list.
The Tuesday decision from Judge Hal Greenwald of the New York State Supreme Court granted a temporary restraining order to Mary’s uncle, Robert, who claimed that the book’s contents violate the confidentiality clause in a previous settlement. When Judge Alan D. Scheinkman overruled the lower court’s decision, he ruled that Simon & Schuster was not bound by Trump’s confidentiality agreement. “Unlike Ms. Trump, S&S has not agreed to surrender or relinquish any of its First Amendment rights,” Scheinkman wrote in the ruling.
The book’s publisher hailed the decision as a major victory, and consistent with other similar rulings against splashy memoirs under legal scrutiny. “We support Mary L. Trump’s right to tell her story in Too Much and Never Enough, a work of great interest and importance to the national discourse that fully deserves to be published for the benefit of the American public,” Simon & Schuster told the New York Times in a statement. “As all know, there are well-established precedents against prior restraint and pre-publication injunctions.”
The book’s promotional materials detail “a nightmare of traumas, destructive relationships, and a tragic combination of neglect and abuse.” His niece reportedly “explains how specific events and general family patterns created the damaged man who currently occupies the Oval Office.”
If nothing else, this stands to fuel the political discourse for at least a few days, much like a number of other splashy anti-Trump memoirs that have since faded from memory. Under normal circumstances, a tell-all memoir from within the president's family, timed for release just one month ahead of the Republican National Convention, might function as an election-altering bombshell. Given the velocity with which everything else is happening, it's hard to imagine this shaking anyone's faith.
