President Donald Trump’s legal team has once again urged a New York judge to deny Mary Trump’s attempt to reopen discovery in a civil case concerning the release of Trump family financial records.
In a Thursday filing, Trump’s attorney Michael Madaio strongly opposed Mary Trump’s motion to obtain documents related to the valuation of assets in the estate of her grandfather, Fred Trump Sr., calling her request both procedurally and legally flawed. “Defendant should not be permitted to take a ‘second bite’ at the proverbial apple,” Madaio wrote, noting that similar arguments had already been rejected twice.
Mary Trump argues that these estate valuation records are critical to her defense in a lawsuit brought by her uncle over her alleged breach of a 2001 confidentiality agreement. She claims she was fraudulently induced into signing that agreement and that the materials would help prove her case.
President Trump sued his niece and three New York Times journalists in 2021, accusing them of conspiring to publish his confidential tax records—records that became the centerpiece of a Pulitzer Prize-winning investigation into questionable tax practices within the Trump Organization. Mary Trump had provided the journalists with the documents, allegedly in violation of the settlement agreement she signed two decades ago.
The case is currently centered on whether Mary Trump is entitled to revisit past estate valuations in order to support her fraud defense. But Justice Robert R. Reed has already rejected that avenue, ruling in May 2025 that Mary Trump is not entitled to the requested discovery. He referenced a separate lawsuit Mary filed in 2020 that was dismissed after he found she had waived any future claims in the 2001 agreement.
Mary Trump responded by arguing the court had “overlooked or misapprehended” key facts and legal standards, and that denying her access to the estate materials would deprive her of the chance to build a defense before it could be properly evaluated.
But President Trump’s legal team contends she is trying to “have it both ways”—to challenge the contract while still keeping the $2.7 million she received from the settlement. “It is well settled that a party may not affirm a contract by retaining its benefits while simultaneously seeking to rescind it,” the filing states.
Justice Reed previously concluded Mary Trump had released all claims—including potential fraud—when she signed the agreement and could have negotiated different terms at the time. Trump’s team emphasized this again, saying Reed’s past ruling was not a legal error but a “case-specific, discretionary” decision that should not be reargued.
The court has not yet ruled on Mary Trump’s latest motion.
