Left: Mary Trump discussing her book "Who Could Ever Love You: A Family Memoir" at The 92nd Street Y on Thursday, Sept. 12, 2024, in New York (Photo by Evan Agostini/Invision/AP). Right: President Donald Trump listens during a meeting with Bahrain's Crown Prince Salman bin Hamad Al Khalifa in the Oval Office of the White House, Wednesday, July 16, 2025, in Washington (AP Photo/Alex Brandon).
Donald Trump's breach of contract lawsuit against his niece has been bogged down for several months by a discovery dispute that Mary Trump maintains is "relevant to a live affirmative defense," and now the president is asking a New York appellate court to put the issue to rest so the case can progress toward trial in earnest.
In opposition last week, Trump asked the New York Supreme Court's Appellate Division, First Department, to reject his niece's appeal "in its entirety" because her arguments have been denied over and over again, starting with her own failed lawsuit years ago.
The brief, referring to Mary Trump as Dr. Trump throughout, said there's no basis to reverse course and pave the way for her to get her hands on Trump family "Estate Valuation Materials" through discovery.
Those materials, the daughter of Fred Trump Jr., has argued, could help her prove she was lied to about the "true value" of her inheritance and fraudulently induced into a 2001 Trump family settlement after Fred Trump Sr.'s death, making the "confidentiality provision" in the settlement she's being sued for allegedly breaching "unenforceable and voidable."
The president's legal team, headed up by attorney Michael Madaio, has alleged in a still-active lawsuit that Mary Trump, the New York Times, and Times reporters "maliciously conspir[ed] against him" in an "insidious plot" to expose his confidential tax records and accuse him of "outright fraud" in the Pulitzer Prize-winning story headlined, "Trump Engaged in Suspect Tax Schemes as He Reaped Riches From His Father."
Separately, Trump alleged, the defendant niece "disclos[ed] confidential information in a tell-all novel" — "Too Much and Never Enough: How My Family Created the World's Most Dangerous Man" — and "breached her confidentiality obligations[.]"
In August, New York Supreme Court Justice Robert Reed, the same judge who tossed out Mary Trump's lawsuit in 2022, again rebuffed her efforts to compel discovery of the "Estate Valuation Materials."
In 2022, Reed found, upon reading the "releases and settlement agreement together," that the documents "clearly and unambiguously released" the president "from unknown claims, including fraud claims."
Last May, Reed ruled that Mary Trump could not rely on her failed arguments to build her "fraud defense" and fend off the president's complaint. The defendant not only appealed but also sought leave from Reed to reargue the point. Come August, Reed denied the defendant that leave.
In October, Mary Trump's lawyers told the appellate court that Reed's denials could not be "left undisturbed," as that would "result in significant prejudice to Dr. Trump who, for all practical purposes, is now unable to effectively pursue one of her live affirmative defenses."
Madaio has now countered that Reed was plainly in the right.
"Justice Reed correctly declined to compel production since Dr. Trump's request was based on a flawed legal theory that had been expressly waived by contract, rejected in a prior litigation, and affirmed on appeal," the appellate brief said. "In any event, Dr. Trump's efforts to repackage her previously-dismissed fraud theory as an affirmative defense fails as a matter of law."
"The Trial Court providently exercised its broad discretion in denying Dr. Trump's motion to compel because the Estate Valuation Materials were sought solely to support a fraudulent inducement theory that was previously denied, in a prior action, on several different grounds," the brief went on. "Thus, the Trial Court properly declined to compel discovery that was not material or necessary to any viable claim or defense and that would have served only to relitigate issues already finally resolved."
As of Wednesday, oral argument appears to be on track for sometime in February.
At the lower court level last week, Reed additionally set other deadlines, making Aug. 3 the target date for confirming that discovery is complete and the case fit for the trial calendar.
The order stated that the parties agreed to finish depositions by April 9, to conclude "expert discovery" and "all disclosures" by June 18, and to finally file a "Note of Issue" by Aug. 3.
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