Court sides with publisher of tell-all book by Trump's niece

Authored by edition.cnn.com and submitted by Tommy__Douglas

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Bad news for President Trump and his younger brother, Robert Trump, who has been trying to block an unflattering tell all book by the President's niece, Mary Trump , that Simon & Schuster is set to publish in July.

On Wednesday evening, a New York appellate court lifted the temporary restraining order against Simon & Schuster, a decision that allows the publisher to move forward with printing copies of the book and shipping them to retailers. The court left the temporary restraining order in place for Mary Trump until a hearing on July 10.

Make no mistake: This is a blow to Robert Trump's attempt to block the book. Simon & Schuster had already said that it had printed 75,000 copies of the book and shipped copies to booksellers. By July 10's hearing, the publisher will be further along in its preparation for publishing the book on its scheduled release date of July 28. In other words, the horse will be that much closer to being out of the barn.

The appellate court also noted that "while parties are free to enter into confidentiality agreements, courts are not necessarily obligated to specifically enforce them" and said that such agreements are "alternatively enforceable through the impassion of money damages." The suggestion that money damages might be a way to resolve the legal dispute, instead of an injunction, also doesn't appear to bode well for Robert Trump's case...

jisa on July 2nd, 2020 at 13:44 UTC »

Yes, but also no. The Court sided with the publisher's appeal of the lower court blocking publication of the book. That is a win, but it's not the final word on this either.

The US legal system sets a very, VERY high bar on restraining speech. The general rule is that the courts will allow something to be published, and then deal consequences for something that shouldn't have been published after-the-fact. So John Bolton's book gets published, but he can be sued or criminally charged for its publication afterwards. So Trump's niece's book can be published, but she can be sued for it afterwards.

The court's ruling to allow publication of this book only addresses the prior restraint imposed by the lower court, and not the merits of any civil suit for damages.

I'm not saying that Trump could/would/should win damages. I'm not saying he couldn't/wouldn't/shouldn't. I'm only noting that this win by Simon and Schuster is ONLY addressing allowing the book to be published, and not the underlying merits of Trump's claim about an NDA.

Muhabla on July 2nd, 2020 at 13:34 UTC »

I'm very curious what that non disclosure agreement was for. I mean, the fact that his family members had to sign non disclosure agreement in the first place is a huge red flag for me.

ExplorationOfEarth on July 2nd, 2020 at 13:06 UTC »

Its already leaked anyway. Next week we the information is all over the place.