Maryanne Trump Barry, a retired US federal judge and older sister of the former president Donald Trump, has died. She was 86.
Multiple news outlets said Barry died at her home on the Upper East Side in New York City. A person familiar with the matter told the New York Times that Barry was found early on Monday morning. Her cause of death was unknown.
The eldest daughter of prominent New York property developer Fred Trump and Mary Anne MacLeod Trump, Barry became an assistant US attorney in 1974 before being appointed to the US district court for New Jersey by Ronald Reagan in 1983. Her appointment to the federal bench, the Times said, was aided by Donald Trump’s then “fixer, the lawyer Roy M Cohn”. In 1999, Barry was appointed to the US court of appeals for the third circuit by Bill Clinton.
In 2018, while Donald Trump was in the White House, a New York Times investigation of his tax affairs, aided by Mary L Trump, the president’s niece who had become alienated from the family, prompted a formal complaint over whether Barry engaged in tax schemes in the 1990s.
The Times report claimed that Barry, who allegedly benefited financially, was able to use her position of power to benefit her family.
Barry retired from the federal bench in 2019.
She was long said to be close to her younger brother, but his rise to power and chaotic White House term seemed to change the relationship.
In 2020, Mary Trump released recordings in which her aunt could be heard criticising the then president.
At one point, Barry was heard to say “the phoniness of it all … the phoniness and this cruelty. Donald is cruel.”
She also said: “His goddamned tweet and lying, oh my God … I’m talking too freely, but you know. The change of stories. The lack of preparation. The lying. Holy shit.”
Barry was married to the late John Barry, a trial and appellate lawyer.
Fred Trump Jr, the oldest of Donald Trump’s siblings and father to Mary L Trump, died in 1981, aged 42.
Robert Trump, a younger brother of the former president, died in 2020 aged 71. His funeral was held at the White House.
Donald Trump’s first wife, Ivana Trump, died aged 73 at her home in New York City last year. She is buried at Bedminster, the former president’s golf club in New Jersey.
Donald Trump, 77, is the clear frontrunner for the Republican presidential nomination next year, despite facing 91 criminal charges and assorted civil threats.
Representatives for Trump did not immediately respond to a request for comment.