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Confidentiality Deal Shouldn’t Block Trump Book, Publisher Tells Judge Publisher Can Move Forward With Tell-All Book on Trump, Judge Rules
(about 1 hour later)
The publisher Simon & Schuster has told a New York judge that it was unaware of the confidentiality agreement President Trump’s brother says their niece, Mary L. Trump, signed with their family but said it should not prevent Ms. Trump’s tell-all book from being published. A New York appellate judge ruled on Wednesday that the publisher Simon & Schuster could go ahead with its plans to release a tell-all book by Mary L. Trump, the niece of President Trump, reversing a lower court’s decision from this week that had temporarily halted publication.
“Mr. Trump believes that simply because he alleges that Ms. Trump violated a nondisclosure agreement, one that Simon & Schuster did not know about and was not a party to, he may force Simon & Schuster to stop the presses and throw the brakes on the delivery trucks, halting publication of the book,” the publisher said in a court filing on Tuesday. “Such an outcome would be unprecedented in this country.” The decision by the judge, Alan D. Scheinkman, means that Simon & Schuster can move forward in publishing the book, “Too Much and Never Enough: How My Family Created the World’s Most Dangerous Man,” which is scheduled to be released at the end of July. In court papers filed on Tuesday, Simon & Schuster claimed that tens of thousands of copies of the book had already been printed, adding that it is a best seller on Amazon.
The filing was in response to a ruling by Judge Hal Greenwald of the New York State Supreme Court in Dutchess County, who on Tuesday issued a temporary restraining order barring publication of the book, “Too Much and Never Enough: How My Family Created the World’s Most Dangerous Man,” until a hearing on July 10. Justice Scheinkman’s ruling, however, put off addressing a central aspect of the bitter spat about the manuscript that has been roiling all month in the Trump family: whether, by writing the book, Ms. Trump violated a confidentiality agreement put in place nearly 20 years ago after a struggle over the will of her grandfather, Fred Trump Sr., Donald Trump’s father.
The president told reporters recently that his niece had a confidentiality agreement after a court settlement over his father’s estate, and his brother, Robert S. Trump, asked Judge Greenwald to stop publication of the book because he said Ms. Trump was in breach of it. In his decision, Justice Scheinkman ruled that Simon & Schuster was not a party to — and thus could not be bound by — the confidentiality agreement, which was signed by Ms. Trump, Donald Trump and the president’s two siblings, Robert S. Trump and Maryanne Trump Barry.
The Simon & Schuster filing went on to note that “Too Much and Never Enough” was already a best seller on Amazon and said it “addresses issues of profound importance to our country, with critical insights concerning the president of the United States, his formative years and his family’s financial dealings.” “Unlike Ms. Trump,” Justice Scheinkman wrote, “S&S has not agreed to surrender or relinquish any of its First Amendment rights.”
“Ms. Trump offers a personal perspective on President Trump — valuable eyewitness source material for historians and citizens,” the filing said. “This court should reject plaintiff’s efforts to silence it.” Simon & Schuster quickly hailed the ruling as a victory.
It also referred to the fact that an effort by the White House to block publication of a book by John R. Bolton, the former national security adviser, was rejected, despite the judge’s finding that Mr. Bolton had most likely disclosed classified information and violated his nondisclosure agreement with the government. “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,” the publisher said in a statement issued Wednesday night. “As all know, there are well-established precedents against prior restraint and pre-publication injunctions.”
In a separate affidavit, Jonathan Karp, Simon & Schuster’s chief executive, said that tens of thousands of copies of the book had already been printed. Its official publication date is July 28. On Tuesday, ruling on a petition filed by Robert Trump, Judge Hal Greenwald of the New York State Supreme Court in Dutchess County issued a temporary restraining order barring publication of Ms. Trump’s book, saying that he would hear more arguments in the case at a hearing on July 10. That same day, Simon & Schuster told Judge Greenwald that it was unaware of Ms. Trump’s confidentiality agreement.
Theodore J. Boutrous Jr., a lawyer for Ms. Trump, said on Wednesday that he planned to file an appeal of Judge Greenwald’s ruling. “As we will demonstrate when we file our brief for Ms. Trump, this 20-year-old agreement is inapplicable, void and unenforceable,” he said in a statement. While Justice Scheinkman declined on Wednesday to rule on the question of whether Ms. Trump had violated the agreement, he did note that it was “reasonable for a well-known and prominent family to collectively agree” to shield “intimate family matters” from the public.
A group of free speech advocates, including the Association of American Publishers and the PEN American Center, have filed a friend-of-the-court brief arguing that stopping the publication of Ms. Trump’s book would be a clear violation of the First Amendment. But he also pointed out that an agreement reached two decades ago to protect the Trump family’s privacy may have been altered by the fact that Donald Trump had in the interim become the president.
“Imbuing an almost 20-year-old, exceedingly vague contractual provision with the power to block the publication of a book,” they wrote, “would constrain public discourse to an extreme and unacceptable degree.” “The legitimate interest in preserving family secrets may be one thing for the family of a real estate developer, no matter how successful,” Justice Scheinkman wrote. “It is another matter for the family of the president of the United States.”
Justice Scheinkman said he might have to review the book himself to decide if its contents violated the confidentiality agreement.
Theodore J. Boutrous Jr., a lawyer for Ms. Trump, said on Wednesday that he planned to file a formal appeal of the lower court’s ruling on Thursday.
“It is very good news that the prior restraint against Simon & Schuster has been vacated,” Mr. Boutros said, “and we look forward to filing our brief tomorrow in the trial court explaining why the same result is required as to Ms. Trump, based on the First Amendment and basic contract law.”