Maryanne Trump Barry, Donald Trump’s sister and a federal appellate judge in Philadelphia, has died at 86
Barry retired from the Philly-based U.S. Court of Appeals for the Third Circuit in 2019, ending a probe into her familial finances. She died Monday at the age of 86.
Former President Donald Trump’s older sister, Maryanne Trump Barry, a former federal appellate judge in Philadelphia, died Monday at age 86.
Barry was found dead in her Manhattan home, and the cause of her death was not immediately clear.
Barry retired from the Philly-based U.S. Court of Appeals for the Third Circuit in 2019, ending a probe into her familial finances.
That probe began after four unidentified people filed complaints with the court based on a New York Times report revealing that the Trump family partook in dubious tax schemes in the 1990s, which increased the wealth Trump and his four siblings inherited, the Times reported.
The Times reported in 2019 that Barry benefited financially from most of the tax schemes and was in a position to influence her family’s actions. A lawyer for Trump refuted the investigation.
According to the Times, the complainants were told just 10 days before Barry’s retirement that the investigation was “receiving the full attention” of a judicial conduct council.
But her retirement made the probe moot, and the complainants were told that the investigation was dropped without determining the merits of the allegations, according to a 2019 Times article.
Federal judges are appointed for life.
But Barry had already taken a step toward retirement before the Times’ report came out, becoming an inactive senior judge after her brother was inaugurated 2017. That means she stopped hearing cases, though she continued to receive her salary.
Upon retirement, she was set to receive an annual pension, which the Times estimated would be between $184,500 and $217,600.
Former President Ronald Reagan appointed Barry to the federal bench in New Jersey in 1983. She was then promoted to Philadelphia’s circuit court in 1999 by then-President Bill Clinton.
Trump “seemed to heed the words of few people as much as he did his eldest sister’s,” sources told the Times, but thanks to another Trump family member, it was revealed that Barry took issue with her younger brother’s governing.
In private conversations secretly recorded by Barry’s niece Mary Trump, the judge spared no words, saying her brother was “cruel” and had “no principles.”
In reference to his immigration policies, she said she figured he hadn’t read her court opinions and said “he doesn’t read.”
Trump, 77, now has just one living sibling, Elizabeth Grau, 81. His two brothers died earlier; Robert Trump died in 2020 at age 71, and Fred Trump Jr., died in 1981 at age 42.
This article includes information from the Associated Press.