Left: President Donald Trump gestures during a reception for Republican members of Congress in the White House’s East Room on Tuesday, July 22, 2025, in Washington (AP Photo/Julia Demaree Nikhinson). Right: Mary Trump presents 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).
Mary Trump’s legal team made a final appeal to a judge, hoping he will order the release of documents related to the “valuation” of Fred Trump Sr.’s estate. They believe these documents are crucial for strengthening their case against her uncle, Donald Trump, in his lawsuit.
On Friday, the response in favor of reconsideration from Mary Trump’s attorney, Theodore Boutrous, argued that New York Supreme Court Justice Robert R. Reed wrongly excluded the so-called “Estate Valuation Materials” from the discovery process. Their approach includes a detailed memorandum of law submitted to support their position.
Those materials, the daughter of Fred Trump Jr. insists, will help her prove she was fraudulently induced into a 2001 Trump family settlement and, therefore, the “confidentiality provision” she had signed was void — torpedoing Donald Trump’s breach of contract case.
The estate materials are “relevant, indeed central, to a live affirmative defense in this case,” wrote the defense.
“Defendant seeks the ‘Estate Valuation Materials’ because they are necessary to demonstrate that she was deliberately misled into entering into the settlement agreement by Plaintiff’s misrepresentations about the value of assets at issue in the underlying estate litigation,” the filing said. “Those materials are plainly relevant and discoverable under the CPLR.”
“Defendant respectfully submits that, by denying her discovery from the Plaintiff on her affirmative defense of fraud, the Order deprived Defendant of the opportunity to develop a factual record and present her defense on the merits,” the reply in support of further argument over discovery continued. “Further, the Order is likewise hindering Defendant’s ability to obtain third-party discovery because, as of the filing of this reply, a third party has refused to provide subpoenaed discovery relevant to Defendant’s affirmative defense of fraud on the ground that the Court has concluded it is outside the scope of relevant discovery.”
The defendant’s uncle has claimed that she, the New York Times, and Times reporters Susanne Craig, David Barstow, and Russell Buettner “maliciously conspir[ed] against him” in an “insidious plot” to expose his confidential tax records and accusing him of “outright fraud” in the Pulitzer Prize-winning story headlined, “Trump Engaged in Suspect Tax Schemes as He Reaped Riches From His Father.”
Last week, Trump attorney Michael Madaio asked Reed to reject Mary Trump’s motion to reargue her discovery position just as the judge has done “two other times already.”
While Mary Trump has claimed the judge “overlooked or misapprehended material facts regarding the state of the pleadings, as well as governing law,” when he refused to allow discovery two months ago and hamstrung her “fraud defense,” the Trump team answered that Reed should simply stick with his prior reasoning and put a definitive end to the defendant’s fishing expedition.
Years earlier, Reed decided that Mary Trump “clearly and unambiguously released [Trump family] defendants from unknown claims, including fraud claims” when she signed the 2001 agreement, meaning her then-lawsuit should fail along with her discovery quest.
“If plaintiff did not wish to forego suing on fraud she might discover in the future, she could have insisted that the releases be conditioned on the truth and accuracy of the financial information provided by defendants,” Reed added, tossing that case.
Then, in May, the judge ruled that defendant Mary Trump could not rely on those failed arguments to build her “fraud defense” and fend off the president’s complaint.
Madaio said that the decision was “not a legal error,” but rather “a case-specific, discretionary ruling that does not warrant reargument.”
“It was within the Court’s discretion to deny discovery as to a defense premised on a theory Defendant is arguably estopped from asserting,” wrote Madaio. “Moreover, Defendant previously asserted a fraud claim arising from the same Settlement Agreement, which this Court dismissed with prejudice and the Appellate Division affirmed.”
On Friday, Mary Trump’s lawyer said the plaintiff’s “invocation of estoppel doctrines” was “meritless.”
“The parties’ prior litigation resolved only Defendant’s ability to sue Plaintiff for fraud; again, it did not involve or address Defendant’s ability to assert fraud in the inducement as an affirmative defense if she was sued,” the filing said.
