According to US media, Maryanne Trump Barry, the elder sister of former President Donald Trump, passed away at the age of 86.
According to ABC News, she was discovered dead in her New York City residence on Monday morning at roughly 04:00 EST (09:00 GMT). Her cause of passing away is yet unknown.
In New Jersey, Mrs. Barry presided over federal courts from 1983 until her retirement in 2019.
Of Mr. Trump’s four siblings, she is the third to have died away.
The former president’s spokesperson did not immediately answer a request for comment from the BBC.
ABC was informed by sources that emergency personnel had reacted to a call reporting a cardiac arrest victim. The publication said that there were no indications of trauma or foul play.
The cause of death will eventually be determined by a medical examiner.
From 1974 until 1983, Mrs. Barry was one of just two female prosecutors in the US Attorney’s Office in New Jersey. She chose not to pursue the family’s real estate company.
In 1983, President Ronald Reagan nominated Mrs. Barry to be a federal district judge with the assistance of her brother’s notorious attorney and fixer, Roy Cohn.
In her niece Mary’s 2020 biography, “Too Much and Never Enough: How My Family Created The World’s Most Dangerous Man,” Mrs. Barry described it as “the only favor I ever asked for in my whole life.”
She did, however, say that Mr. Trump never allowed her to forget the favor.
As she put it, “Where would you be without me?”
President Bill Clinton appointed Mrs. Barry to the US Court of Appeals for the Third Circuit in 1999; the Third Circuit covers parts of Delaware, Pennsylvania, and New Jersey.
By 2019, a judicial misconduct probe of Mrs. Barry had resulted from a New York Times article on the Trump family’s tax troubles. That February, she retired, and the investigation was closed without finding anything.
First, Mrs. Barry wed David Desmond, with whom she had a son named David. Afterwards, she married John Joseph Barry, who passed away in 2000.
Her younger brother, who declared her to be a “phenomenal” choice if she were ever considered for the US Supreme Court, was close to her and also ran for president in 2015.
However, he admitted that the two “have different views a little bit” in a 2016 radio interview.
Like Mr. Trump, Mrs. Barry avoided the spotlight and avoided discussing him in public.
However, it is reported that their relationship changed when Mary Trump’s book was published, partly based on conversations between Mrs. Barry and her niece.
Ms. Trump, a vocal opponent of her uncle, leaked audio clips of these conversations that she had covertly recorded in order to promote the book.
In one recording obtained by the Washington Post, Mrs. Barry can be heard stating, “All he wants to do is appeal to his base.” “He lacks morality. Not one.
Additionally, Mrs. Barry is heard informing her niece that she “completed [Mr. Trump’s homework for him]” and that “he had someone take the exams when he got into the University of Pennsylvania.”
However, the siblings were starting to patch things up and were spotted together at the former president’s club in Bedminster, New Jersey, this summer, according to ABC.
The Republican presidential front-runner, Mr. Trump, lost his brothers, Fred and Robert, in 1981 and 2020, respectively. Ivana Trump, his first wife, passed away last year as well.
Elizabeth Trump Grau, 81, his only surviving sister, used to be a banker.
