A tell-all book by Donald Trump’s niece will be published two weeks ahead of schedule and will argue that the president suffered “child abuse” in the early years of his life.
Publisher Simon & Schuster, which last week was released from a temporary restraining order won by the president’s brother, cited “high demand and extraordinary interest” as it brought publication forward on Monday.
The company also released an image of the back cover of Too Much and Never Enough: How My Family Created the World’s Most Dangerous Man by Mary Trump.
“Today,” the text began, “Donald is much as he was at three years old: incapable of growing, learning or evolving, unable to regulate his emotions, moderate his responses or take in and synthesize information.”
Mary Trump, a trained clinical psychologist, also writes about the president’s upbringing by a mother who was ill and a father, the property developer Fred Trump, who remained committed to his job, to whom “love meant nothing” and who “expected obedience, that was all”.
“Child abuse is, in some sense, a matter of ‘too much’ or ‘not enough’,” Mary Trump writes, adding: “Donald suffered deprivations that would scar him for life.”
In a statement released by the publisher, Mary Trump said: “In addition to the first-hand accounts I can give as my father’s daughter and my uncle’s only niece, I have the perspective of a trained clinical psychologist. Too Much and Never Enough is the story of the most visible and powerful family in the world. And I am the only Trump who is willing to tell it.”
Mary Trump is still subject to a temporary restraining order imposed by a judge in New York state supreme court. In her appeal, she claims a 2001 non-disclosure agreement arising from litigation over a family will was based on fraudulent financial information. A hearing is scheduled for Friday.
The president’s niece has expressed opposition to his political career via social media and was a key source for New York Times reporting on Trump family tax affairs which won a Pulitzer prize.
A supreme court ruling on whether Trump must release tax and financial records is eagerly awaited and expected as soon as this week.
Speaking to CNN on Sunday, Ted Boutrous, Mary Trump’s lawyer, accused Donald Trump of mounting “an orchestrated campaign against freedom of speech and freedom of the press”. Lawsuits against books are intended to have a “chilling effect”, he said.
The White House sought to block a book by John Bolton, Trump’s third national security adviser, but were denied by a federal judge. The Room Where It Happened sold nearly 800,000 copies in its first week in stores.
Donald Trump’s brother Robert Trump, a businessman, filed the suit against Mary Trump. He is represented by Charles Harder, an attorney who has worked for the president.
Harder has said he will seek the “maximum remedies available” for Mary Trump’s “truly reprehensible” actions. He has also called the New York Times’ reporting on Trump family tax affairs “100% false, and highly defamatory”.
In a statement to the New York Times last month, Robert Trump slammed his niece for what he called an “attempt to sensationalise and mischaracterise our family relationship … for her own financial gain”.
“I and the rest of my entire family,” he said, “are so proud of my wonderful brother, the president.”
The president’s other surviving siblings are Maryanne Trump Barry, a retired judge, and Elizabeth Trump Grau, a retired banker. Mary Trump’s father was Fred Trump Jr, who died in 1981.
Source: The guardian
