Reuters :
A New York judge on Tuesday temporarily blocked Donald Trump’s niece from publishing a tell-all book that offers an unflattering portrait of the US president and his family.
Justice Hal Greenwald of the state supreme court in Poughkeepsie, New York, issued a temporary restraining order against Mary Trump and her publisher Simon & Schuster at the request of Robert Trump, the president’s brother.
Robert Trump has said the scheduled July 28 release of “Too Much and Never Enough: How My Family Created the World’s Most Dangerous Man” would violate a confidentiality agreement tied to the estate of his father Fred Trump Sr, who died in 1999. Mary Trump is Fred Trump’s granddaughter.
Mary Trump and Simon & Schuster appealed Greenwald’s order less than 2-1/2 hours after it was issued.
Their lawyer Theodore Boutrous called Greenwald’s order a “prior restraint on core political speech that flatly violates the First Amendment” of the US Constitution.
“This book, which addresses matters of great public concern and importance about a sitting president in an election year, should not be suppressed even for one day,” Boutrous added.
Charles Harder, a lawyer for Robert Trump, called the defendants’ actions “truly reprehensible.”
