Mary Trump Files a Lawsuit Against Donald Trump and His Siblings
Donald Trump's niece, Mary Trump, released a tell-all book about the President and his family earlier this summer.
In the book, Mary reveals that she was a source for a landmark New York Times investigation.
A couple months later, in September, Mary filed a lawsuit against the President and his siblings, claiming they defrauded her out of her share of her grandfather's wealth.
When Donald Trump moved into the White House, more than a few of his family members stepped into the spotlight alongside him. It seems not a day goes by that the public doesn't hear about a Trump child's exploits, whether it be Ivanka's poorly-timed Instagram posts or Don Jr.'s right-wing pronouncements; even lesser-known figures, like Donald's sister Maryanne Trump Barry, have found themselves under renewed scrutiny.
But until very recently, the President's niece, Mary Trump, had been hardly heard from at all. With the publishing of her book about her uncle—which prompted a legal skirmish and then set sales records on its first day—that's all changed. In recent months, she's continued to make television appearances to speak about Trump, and filed a lawsuit against the President and his siblings in September.
Here, what you should know about Mary Lea Trump.
She's the daughter of Fred Trump Jr., Donald's older brother.
Mary is the eldest grandchild of patriarch Fred Trump Sr., and the daughter of Fred Trump Jr., the second of Fred Sr. and Mary Trump's five children. Fred Trump Jr. died from a heart attack due to complications from alcoholism, at age 42 in 1981. He left behind two children—Mary L. Trump and Fred Trump III, both teenagers at the time—with Linda Lee Clapp, his former wife.
Fred Jr.'s death left enduring scars on the family, including his younger brother, the now-President. Fred Sr. had hoped that Fred Jr. would take over the family business, but Fred Jr. was reticent to do so, preferring to pursue a career as a pilot. "There was a lot of tension between not only the old man but also between him and Donald," one of Fred Jr.'s friends, Annamaria Forcier, told the Washington Post in 2019. "There was a lot of tension because they didn’t want him to be an airline pilot."
Famously, Fred Jr.'s struggle with alcoholism would put Donald off drinking entirely. Donald Trump told the Washington Post, "I do regret having put pressure on him."
Mary has mostly stayed out of the spotlight.
Unlike some other members of her family, Mary has chosen to live largely under the radar. Not much is known about her personal life, other than that the 55-year-old lives with her daughter in New York. Mary holds a master's degree in literature from Columbia University and a doctorate in psychology from Adelphi University, per CNN. According to her biography on the Simon & Schuster website, she's taught courses in trauma, psychopathology, and developmental psychology.
She does have a Twitter account, in which she hints at her political views. In her bio, she writes "Black Lives Matter," and has an emoji of the LGBTQ rainbow flag.
She did speak out once about the Trump family.
Mary publicly slammed her extended family about the way Fred Trump Sr.'s estate was handled after his death in 1999.
After Fred III and Mary learned that they would received a far smaller portion of Fred Sr.'s estate than they expected, they filed lawsuits to challenge the outcome, alleging that Donald had pressured Fred Sr. to change his will while Fred Sr. was suffering the effects of dementia.
Her brother, Fred III, had recently had a child with cerebral palsy, who required pricey medical care. The expenses had been covered by a Trump company insurance plan. But after Fred III and Mary challenged Fred Sr.'s will, Robert, Maryanne, and Donald dropped the medical coverage for Fred III's young son in retaliation.
"When [Fred III] sued us, we said, 'Why should we give him medical coverage?'" Donald told the New York Daily News in 2000.
Mary also spoke to the Daily News for the article. "Given this family, it would be utterly naive to say it has nothing to do with money. But for both me and my brother, it has much more to do with that our father be recognized," she said. "He existed, he lived, he was their oldest son. And William is my father's grandson. He is as much a part of that family as anybody else. He desperately needs extra care."
The dispute was settled confidentially—but with Mary's new lawsuit against the President and his siblings, it's recently been resurrected. More on that below.
With her tell-all, she made a big splash.
In June, the Daily Beast broke the story that Mary was set to publish a tell-all about the Trump family. The highly-anticipated Too Much and Never Enough: How My Family Created the World’s Most Dangerous Man was officially released on July 16, 2020.
"Mary L. Trump has the education, insight, and intimate familiarity needed to reveal what makes Donald, and the rest of her clan, tick," reads the description on publisher Simon & Schuster's site, adding that Mary discloses "a nightmare of traumas, destructive relationships, and a tragic combination of neglect and abuse" in the book. Mary also reveals that she was a primary source for the New York Times's landmark investigation into Donald Trump's taxes.
On June 21, Donald Trump told Axios that Mary is "not allowed to write a book" because she had signed a non-disclosure agreement in 2001, following the dispute over Fred Sr.'s estate. Trump's statements to Axios confirmed a separate Daily Beast article, which reported Mary's NDA. The youngest of Donald Trump's siblings, Robert, had sued Mary to attempt to stop the book's publication, citing the 2001 NDA. On June 3o, a New York state Supreme Court judge temporarily blocked the publication of Mary's book, ahead of a July 1o hearing for the case. Both Mary's attorney and Simon & Schuster pledged to appeal—and on July 1, an appellate judge reversed the lower court's decision, allowing the publication of the book to move forward.
Mary filed a lawsuit against the President and his siblings in September.
The lawsuit, filed in the Supreme Court of Manhattan, begins by stating that "For Donald J. Trump, his sister Maryanne, and their late brother Robert, fraud was not just the family business—it was a way of life," echoing the sentiments of Mary's tell-all.
"Mary's father, and their brother, Fred Trump Jr., died in 1981 when Mary was just sixteen years old. Upon his death, Mary inherited valuable minority interests in the family business. Donald, Maryanne, and Robert committed to watch over her interests as fiduciaries. They lied," the suit reads. "Rather than protect Mary's interests, they designed and carried out a complex scheme to siphon funds away from her interests, conceal their grift, and deceive her about the true value of what she had inherited."
The suit seeks to recover millions of dollars, which Mary said her relatives worked "together in secret to steal from me" in a statement issued by her lawyer, per the New York Times. She added, "I am bringing this case to hold them accountable and to recover what is rightfully mine."
White House press secretary Kayleigh McEnany disputed the suit's claims at a press conference on September 24, saying, “The only fraud committed there was Mary Trump recording one of her relatives and she has really discredited herself.”
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