Judge gives a green light to tell-it-all book by Donald Trump’s niece

Simon & Schuster can move forward with plans to release a tell-all book by US President Donald Trump’s niece.

Some 75,000 copies of the book have been printed and are ready for publication.

Simon & Schuster can move forward with plans to release a tell-all book by US President Donald Trump’s niece after a New York appellate judge overturned a temporary restraining order against the publisher.

The six-page order on Wednesday night (Thursday AEST) by judge Alan Scheinkman, reversed a lower-court decision a day earlier to delay publication.

While an injunction against author Mary Trump remains in place, the ruling means Simon & Schuster can continue with its plan to distribute Too Much and Never Enough: How My Family Created the World’s Most Dangerous Man, which is scheduled to be released this month.

The President’s younger brother, Robert, filed the lawsuit against Ms Trump on Friday in New York State Supreme Court in Dutchess County, alleging that details she included in the book violated a decades-old confidentiality agreement she signed as part of a financial settlement stemming from a familial inheritance dispute.

Simon & Schuster said in court documents that it wasn’t a party to the Trump settlement and therefore wasn’t bound by its terms. Justice Scheinkman agreed.

“Unlike Ms Trump, S&S has not agreed to surrender or relinquish any of its First Amendment rights,” he wrote, adding that the company was not acting as an agent of Ms Trump.

The judge didn’t rule on the issue at the core of the Trump family clash: whether she breached the terms of her settlement agreement. But he said that courts often balanced the interests of the parties with the public interest. “The legitimate interest in preserving family secrets may be one thing for the family of a real estate developer, no matter how successful; it is another matter for the family of the President of the United States,” Judge Scheinkman said.

The court will hear arguments on July 10 and rule on whether the temporary injunction against Ms Trump should continue.

Simon & Schuster lauded the decision, calling the book “a work of great interest and importance to the national discourse that fully deserves to be published for the benefit of the American public”.

The book ranks No 2 on Amazon’s Top 100 bestseller list. Some 75,000 copies of the book have been printed and are ready for publication, and thousands have been already shipped to sellers.

THE WALL STREET JOURNAL