Donald Trump’s niece has reportedly written a ‘harrowing and salacious’ book about her uncle in which she details how and why she leaked family tax information to the New York Times – and delves into family feuds.
Mary Trump, 55, who has a Ph.D. in clinical psychology, is due to publish Too Much And Never Enough in August, to coincide with the Republican National Convention.
The book will reportedly lay bare how his sister, Maryanne Trump Barry, an 83-year-old retired federal judge, disapproves of Trump’s presidency.
Trump Barry had conversations with Mary in which she expressed ‘damning thoughts about her brother,’ The Daily Beast reported.
The book will also allege that Trump and his father, Fred Trump Sr, contributed to the death of Trump’s alcoholic elder brother Fred Trump Jr by failing to help him.
Trump has previously spoken of his regret at the death of Fred Trump Jr, aged 42, in 1981.
Simon & Schuster, the publishers, are said to be remaining tight-lipped about the content of the book – the first expose of Trump written by a family member.
Mary Trump, a 55-year-old professional coach, has written a book about her famous family
Mary Trump, the 55-year-old niece of Donald Trump and daughter of the late Fred Jr, is writing a book, it has been reported. From left to right: Robert, Elizabeth, Fred Jr, Donald, Maryanne
But The Daily Beast reported that it will be an explosive account from within the Trump dynasty.
The New York Times’s October 2018 investigation into Trump’s financial affairs – for which Mary reveals herself to be the source – punctured the carefully-curated image of Trump as a self-made tycoon.
The paper found that Trump had received at least $413 million in today’s dollars from his father’s real estate empire.
The Times also alleged that Trump was involved in ‘fraudulent’ tax schemes, allegations which the president’s lawyer strongly denied.
The Daily Beast knew that Mary was the source of the family tax information, because they followed up The New York Times’s report with a story about how the investigations team fell apart after one of the reporters, David Barstow, continued to pursue the story without his colleagues, with the aim of writing a book.
The Daily Beast did not reveal her identity at the time.
Elizabeth Trump, a retired banker, with her brother Donald and their mother Mary in 1995
Fred Trump Jr, Donald’s brother and Mary’s father, died in 1981 after battling alcoholism
The bad blood between Trump and his niece dates back 20 years, to a fight over Fred Trump Sr.’s will, and the actions he took to cut off financial and medical support for her brother’s ill child.
Trump’s three surviving siblings – Maryanne; Robert, now 72; and Elizabeth, now 74 – all agreed with Trump in an argument over Fred Sr’s will.
Mary and her brother Fred III argued that the will was ‘procured by fraud and undue influence’, and that they should have had a larger share of the inheritance.
Mary and Fred III were then at loggerheads with their aunts and uncles – Trump and the other three – over care for Fred III’s son William, who was born with cerebral palsy.
‘My aunts and uncles should be ashamed of themselves,’ Mary said, in a rare 2000 interview.
‘I’m sure they are not.’
Donald Trump and his father Fred Trump Sr, who died in 1999 and left his son more than $413m
Donald Trump posted a childhood photo on Instagram in 2014. From left to right: Donald, Fred Jr, Elizabeth, Maryanne and Robert. Trump’s siblings rarely speak out about the president
The dispute was settled before the election, and Mary and Fred III have kept a low profile ever since.
But that has not stopped her documenting Maryanne’s concerns about Trump.
And it also led her to write, The Daily Beast claimed, that Trump and his father escalated Fred Jr’s descent into alcoholism.
Trump himself has spoken about Fred Jr’s sad ending, and expressed rare regret.
‘I do regret having put pressure on him,’ to join the family business, Trump said, in a 2019 interview with The Washington Post.
Trump said he should have accepted that, despite Fred Jr being the oldest, running the family business ‘was just something he was never going to want.’
He added: ‘It was just not his thing.
‘I think the mistake that we made was we assumed that everybody would like it.’
He said that because both he and his father wanted Fred Jr involved, ‘there was sort of a double pressure put on him’.
The October 2018 investigation cast doubt on Trump’s claims to be a self-made entrepreneur
Donald Trump, left, with his brother, Fred Jr, brother Robert, sister Maryanne, and sister Elizabeth. Shortly after the picture was taken he was ‘earning’ $200,000 a year
The president stopped short of accepting any blame in his death, however.
‘I don’t think there was much we could do at the time,’ he said.
‘Things have been studied and learned right now that are much different.’
The book is believed likely to send shock waves through Washington and the Trump family, just months before the election.
It also comes hot on the heels of John Bolton’s much-anticipated memoir The Room Where it Happened.
Bolton’s book was expected to be out in the spring, but the White House successfully managed to delay publication.
The book is now due on shelves on June 23, although the White House once again tried to block it, citing ‘classified information’.