Maryanne Trump Barry, the older sister of Donald Trump, dies
The family of Donald Trump has been hit with a tragic loss during the former US president’s New York business fraud trial.
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Maryanne Trump Barry, the older sister of Donald Trump, has died at the age of 86.
The former US federal judge, who was described by The New York Times as both Mr Trump’s protector and critic throughout their lives, died at her home on the Upper East Side of Manhattan.
Close friends said Mr Trump once relied heavily on his eldest sister’s guidance but their relationship was fractured in the final year of his presidency when their niece released recordings of her aunt speaking harshly about him.
Judge Barry called younger brother Donald “cruel” and accused him of being a liar in a series of scathing remarks secretly recorded by author Mary L. Trump in 2018 and 2019.
Mary, the daughter of Donald Trump’s late brother Fred junior, made the recordings while working on the book Too Much and Never Enough: How My Family Created the World’s Most Dangerous Man.
Judge Barry blasted her younger brother amid the news that children were being separated at the border from their parents and being held in cramped quarters, according to the Washington Post.
“His goddamned tweet and the lying — oh, my God,” Judge Barry said in one of the recordings.
“I’m talking too freely, but, you know. The change of stories. The lack of preparation. The lying.”
She then said: “All he wants to do is appeal to his base. He has no principles. None.”
She added: “It’s the phoniness and this cruelty. Donald is cruel.”
“You can’t trust him,” she said.
The former US president appeared to brush the comments aside, The New York Post reports, as he had previously acknowledged their opposing stances on the issue.
After decades in the legal world, Judge Barry retired in February 2019 amid an investigation over alleged tax fraud stemming from her father, Fred Trump’s, real estate empire.
She stepped down after The New York Times found that the Trump siblings had engaged in dubious tax schemes during the 1990s to increase their inherited wealth.
She rose to prominence in 1974 when she became an Assistant United States Attorney for the District of New Jersey. She was one of only two women in the office.
In 1983, she was nominated by Ronald Reagan to a seat on the United States District Court for the District of New Jersey.
She was then nominated by Bill Clinton to serve on the US Court of Appeals for the Third Circuit in 1999.
Known as a tough operator, in 2006 she blasted a US Immigration Court judge for allegedly “bullying” an African refugee seeking asylum after several relatives were killed during a coup.
Judge Barry was the eldest of the Trump siblings.
Donald’s younger brother, Robert, died in 2020, and the former president held a funeral service for him at the White House.
Fred junior died in 1981 at the age of 43 after a lengthy battle with alcoholism.
Mr Trump’s older sister, Elizabeth Trump Grau, is now his last surviving sibling.
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