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Trump niece's tell-all book can now be released as judge overturns temporary block

Robert Trump (left) and Donald Trump (right) in 1998: AP
Robert Trump (left) and Donald Trump (right) in 1998: AP

Donald Trump’s niece will publish a new tell-all book on the president after an appeals court in New York overturned an earlier decision to stop its publication.

The New York State Supreme Court Appellate Division said on Wednesday that it would reverse a previous decision to delay the book’s publication.

While an injunction against the book’s author, Mary Trump, remains in place, the decision will allow Simon & Schuster to distribute the book titled “Too Much and Never Enough: How My Family Created The World’s Most Dangerous Man.”

Ms Trump is the daughter of the president’s older brother, Fred Trump Jr., who died from a heart attack in 1981 aged 42.

Another Trump brother, Robert Trump, had taken Ms Trump and publishers Simon & Schuster to court over the book, which he claimed violated an agreement between relatives to not reveal inside information.

Simon & Schuster billed Ms Trump’s book as one that would “explain how her uncle became the man who now threatens the world’s health, economic security, and social fabric.”

But judge Alan D. Scheinkman wrote that “The evidence submitted is insufficient for this Court to determine whether the plaintiff is likely to succeed in establishing that claim”.

Court papers also showed that the publisher did not know about an agreement between Ms Trump and her relatives until she was sued.

In a statement, Simon and Schuster welcomed the court decision, and said the book was of “great interest and importance to the national discourse that fully deserves to be published for the benefit of the American public.”

Judge Scheinkman added: “Stated differently, 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.”

Some 75,000 copies were said to have been shipped to bookstores and others ahead of the planned publication date on 28 July.

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