Simon & Schuster , the publisher of a tell-all book written by the niece of PresidentDonald Trump , said it didn't know about any nondisclosure agreement when it commissioned the book.- The publisher's CEO said it was not aware of any agreement signed by
Mary Trump until a lawsuit was filed by Trump's younger brother, Mary's uncle. - A New York judge on Tuesday temporarily barred the book's publication after the lawsuit claimed Mary had broken the NDA.
- Mary Trump's lawyer said he will appeal: "This book, which addresses matters of great concern and importance about a sitting president in an election year, should not be suppressed even for one day."
The publisher of a tell-all book by President Donald Trump's niece said it was not aware that she had signed a nondisclosure agreement until just before a judge halted the book's publication.
A New York judge on Tuesday temporarily barred Mary Trump from publishing the book, which was due to be released on July 28, after a lawsuit from the Trump family claimed that Mary had broken a nondisclosure agreement signed years earlier.
The suit was filed by Robert Trump, who is also Mary's uncle.
Mary and the book's publisher, Simon & Schuster, are due to appear before the judge on July 10.
Jonathan Karp, Simon & Schuster's CEO, said in an affidavit, reported by The Daily Beast, that the publisher was not aware of the agreement.
"We did not learn anything about Ms. Trump signing any agreement concerning her ability to speak about her litigation with her family until shortly after press broke concerning Ms. Trump's book about two weeks ago, well after the book had been accepted, put into production, and printing had begun," Karp said.
"And we never saw any purported agreement until this action was filed against Ms. Trump and Simon & Schuster."
Karp also said that 75,000 copies of the book have already been printed, with "thousands" of them already shipped.
As Business Insider's John Haltiwanger previously reported, the lawsuit alleges that the agreement dates back to an inheritance dispute after the death of Robert Trump, Mary's father.
Donald Trump said in an interview with Axios in June that the agreement meant Mary was "not allowed to write a book."
Mary's book, "Too Much and Never Enough: How My Family Created the World's Most Dangerous Man," alleges that Trump "dismissed and derided" his own father when he began succumbing to Alzheimer's.
It also says that she leaked the documents that led to a New York Times investigation into Trump's tax returns that found he inherited much of his wealth from his father, then squandered it.
Politico reported that Ted Boutrous, a lawyer for Mary Trump, said he would appeal.
He said that the temporary ban on publishing is "a prior restraint on core political speech that flatly violates the First Amendment.
"This book, which addresses matters of great concern and importance about a sitting president in an election year, should not be suppressed even for one day."
Robert Trump had earlier tried to stop the publication of the book in a different New York court, where the judge dismissed the lawsuit.