Mary L. Trump, whose pending tell-all memoir about her uncle President Trump has incited a court fight on the eve of publication, spoke out for the first time publicly about the battle, saying that her book has “deep national relevance” and that the legal contract the family has sought to use this month to stop its release was based on fraud.
Nearly 20 years ago, Ms. Trump, 55, signed a complicated settlement agreement with Mr. Trump and his two siblings that put an end to a bitter yearlong spat about the will of the family patriarch, the president’s father, Fred Trump Sr. Among the agreement’s provisions was a confidentiality clause that shielded the details of the pact and allowed Ms. Trump to keep her share of her inheritance.
But in an affidavit filed Thursday night in New York in the fight over the book, Ms. Trump claimed that she consented to the agreement — and signed away her interests in several family properties — only because Donald J. Trump and his siblings lied to her about how much they were worth.
