Maryanne Trump-Barry

Marriage and Family

• Maryanne Trump Desmond married John Joseph Barry in 1982. “Maryanne Trump Desmond, daughter of Mr. and Mrs. Fred C. Trump of Jamaica Estates, Queens, was married yesterday to John Joseph Barry, son of the late Mr. and Mrs. James J. Barry of New York. The Rev. Dr. Norman Vincent Peale performed the ceremony at the Marble Collegiate Church in New York.” (New York Times, December 27, 1982)
• Maryanne’s husband, James Barry, was a criminal defense attorney based in New York and New Jersey. “Mr. Barry, a lawyer with a practice in New York and New Jersey, graduated from Pratt Institute and New York University School of Law, where he was elected to the Order of the Coif. He is a member of the Criminal Law Committee of the Association of the Bar of the City of New York, and vice president of the Association of the Federal Bar of the State of New Jersey.” (New York Times, December 27, 1982)

David William Desmond

John Joseph Barry

Legal Career

• 1983: “Maryanne Trump Barry, the oldest daughter, is an assistant United States Attorney in Newark and a candidate for a Federal judgeship.” (New York Times, August 7, 1983)
• Maryanne Trump received her undergraduate degree from Mount Holyoke college and a law degree from Hofstra University. “The bride, First Assistant United States Attorney for the District of New Jersey in Newark, is the highest ranking woman in the major United States Attorneys' Offices. She graduated cum laude from Mount Holyoke College, received a master's degree in public law and government from Columbia University, and received a J.D. degree from Hofstra University School of Law, where she served as editor of the Law Review and a member of the National Moot Court Team. She is first vice president of the Association of the Federal Bar of the State of New Jersey, and a member of the Lawyer's Advisory Committee of the Court of Appeals for the Third Circuit. Her father is founder and chairman of the board of the Trump Organization, a real estate firm, with headquarters in New York City, of which her brother, Donald J. Trump, is president.” (New York Times, December 27, 1982)
• Trump Barry entered the practice of law at the age of 37, deferring the start of her legal career to focus on raising a son."Judge Barry, a 1958 graduate of Mount Holyoke College who earned a law degree at Hofstra University 16 years later, described herself to the group as a ‘traditional woman’ -- someone who married and reared a son before entering law practice at the age of 37." (New York Times, | December 4, 1992)
• Trump Barry joined the federal prosecutor's office in Newark in 1974 and worked there until 1983, when Roy Cohn sponsored her for a position on the federal bench. "Judge Barry did not address whether she had been sexually harassed herself, but she well knows the disconcerting feeling of wearing the only blouse in a sea of men's suits. When she became a Federal prosecutor in Newark in 1974, she constituted half the women in a 62-lawyer office. She stayed there for the next nine years, becoming chief of the appeals division. She has never denied that luck and a Cohn connection helped her obtain a judgeship." (New York Times, | December 4, 1992)
• September, 1983: Ronald Reagan nominated Maryanne Trump Barry to a position as a federal judge. “President Reagan today nominated Maryanne Trump Barry, the first assistant United States attorney for New Jersey, to be a district judge in Trenton. […] Mrs. Barry, who is 46 years old and lives in East Orange, was born in Jamaica, Queens. She is a graduate of the Hofstra University School of Law and was editor of its Law Review. Her brother is Donald Trump, a major New York City real-estate developer, who is seeking to build a casino-hotel in Atlantic City. She said she did not anticipate any conflict-of- interest problems regarding his activities in New Jersey.” (New York Times, September 15, 1983)
  • Maryanne Trump Barr was nominated for a position on the federal judiciary by New Jersey’s Republican governor, Thomas Kean. “For the second time in recent months, Labor Secretary Raymond J. Donovan has tried without success to get White House approval for his candidate for a federal judgeship in New Jersey over objections of Republican Gov. Thomas H. Kean. […] When a federal judge in Trenton resigned from the bench recently, Kean recommended Maryanne Trump Barry, a first assistant U.S. attorney in Newark. Her brother is Donald Trump, a New York condominium and Atlantic City hotel developer and Reagan campaign contributor.” (Washington Post, March 11, 1983)
• 1989: Maryanne Trump Barry presided over a criminal trial of six men accused of plotting to kill mobster John Gotti. “That's Donald Trump's big sister handling the trial of six men accused of plotting to rub out New York crime boss John Gotti. U.S. District Judge Maryanne Trump Barry, 51, is presiding in Newark, N.J., and has been on the federal bench for 5 1/2 years.” (Miami Herald, March 7, 1989)
  • John Gotti's son, John Gotti Jr., attended the same military academy that Donald Trump did. "Among its thousands of alumni, the 126-year-old New York Military Academy counts the unlikely grouping of Donald J. Trump, Stephen Sondheim and John A. Gotti. Yet all three have this in common: They remember their time at the prep school with deep affection. ‘It got me away from my mother -- she babied me,’ said Mr. Gotti, whose father, John J. Gotti, the debonair boss of the Gambino crime family, sent him there to gain structured habits after he was skipping classes. ‘It made me get out on my own, grow as a man, made me responsible. I couldn't depend on my mother.’" (New York Times, September 21, 2015)
• February, 2019: Facing allegations of tax fraud, Maryanne Trump Barry resigned from the federal judiciary. "President Donald Trump’s older sister, Maryanne Trump Barry, has stepped down from her role as a federal appellate judge and thus ended the scrutiny into whether she and her siblings’ fraudulent tax schemes constitute a breach of judicial conduct. According to a Wednesday New York Times report, the investigation was launched due to the Times reporting that Barry and her siblings financially benefited from chicanery and fraud committed in the 1990s." (Talking Points Memo, | April 11, 2019)

Political Opinions

• Maryanne Trump Barry called for harsher sentences for muggers after her own mother was mugged. “Judge Not: Donald Trump's sister, Judge Maryanne Trump Barry, says the legal system needs to get tough with muggers, or elderly residents like her mother will have to continue to live in a ‘climate of fear.’ Mary Trump, 79, was beaten and robbed last month. ‘I'm speaking now as a daughter and not as a federal judge,’ Barry said in Newark, N.J. ‘Thugs who brutalize elderly people should be punished severely.’” (Los Angeles Times, November 18, 1991)

Claimed that efforts to reduce sexual harassment were ruining the "fun" of workplaces

• November, 1992: Maryanne Trump Barry sparked controversy after telling a conference of law enforcement officers and public officials that “women should lighten up a bit on the subject of sexual harassment. “Maryanne Trump Barry likes to joke that in New York she may be seen merely as Donald Trump's sister but that in New Jersey, where she has been a Federal judge since 1983, Donald Trump is seen primarily as her brother. […] Since President Ronald Reagan named her to the Federal District Court in Newark, Judge Barry, Mr. Trump's older sister, has won praise for her industry, intelligence and outspokenness. It was her outspokenness that was most evident on Nov. 20 when she told 900 Federal law-enforcement agents and officials in Washington, most of them female, that women should lighten up a bit on the subject of sexual harassment.” (New York Times, | December 14, 1992)
  • Trump Barry argued that “professional hypochondriacs” were making “frivolous” sexual harassment complaints, that she complained were actually exacerbating the problems of sexual harassment. “Judge Barry said that undue sensitivity and an excessively confrontational attitude of some women in the work place was poisoning relations between the sexes. Because of a few ‘professional hypochondriacs,’ she said, good and well-meaning men are afraid to be themselves, and the more serious problems women face in the work force remain unaddressed. ‘I stand second to none in condemning sexual harassment of women,’ she told the Interagency Committee on Women in Law Enforcement. ‘But what is happening is that every sexy joke of long ago, every flirtation, is being recalled by some women and revised and re-evaluated as sexual harassment. Many of these accusations are, in anybody's book, frivolous.’” (New York Times, | December 14, 1992)
  • Trump Barry told her audience that she asked prospective law clerks how they would react to being sexually demeaned in the workplace, and denied job opportunities to women who claimed that they would take offense. "Judge Barry said she herself had been criticized by ardent feminists over the language she used. She related how, nine years after the fact, she still felt stung by the tongue-lashing one female lawyer gave her for calling a young woman a ‘girl.’ Undeterred, she said, she asks prospective clerks today how they would react if she made a similar slip. Some, she related, ‘visibly coil up like cobras, narrow their eyes and their mouths, and spit out some answer which usually includes the word 'shocked.'’ The smarter ones figure out where the judge is going and laugh it off, and they get the clerkships. ‘Needless to say, I don't want a woman working for me who's waiting for me to shoot myself in the foot,’ she declared." (New York Times, | December 14, 1992)
  • Trump Barry claimed that "frivolous" accusations of sexual harassment were preventing "playfulness and banter" in workplaces. "Making a big deal out of slight slights, she argues, not only angers men needlessly but trivializes the serious problems women face in advancing in the predominantly macho male world of law enforcement. It has also made work less fun, she said. ‘Frivolous accusations reduce, if not eliminate, not only communication between men and women but any kind of playfulness and banter,’ she said. ‘Where has the laughter gone?" (New York Times, | December 14, 1992)
  • Trump Barry urged her audience to use their sexuality to advance in the workplace. "Though she acknowledged it was heresy, she recommended for women the strategic use of their own sexuality. ‘There is no more potent weapon in any profession than a woman with a feminine exterior and a will of steel, and I defy you to find one man who will disagree.’" (New York Times, | December 4, 1992)
  • One critic of Trump Barry's remarks noted that they failed to appreciate her uniquely privileged position, telling a reporter that most people are not "tall, blonde, beautiful, rich and had Roy Cohn as a sponsor.". "Off the premises, and off the record, some critics said the judge's privileged background had insulated her from the sexual wars in the work place. Not everyone, noted one prominent female lawyer who wouldn't be quoted by name, ‘is tall, blonde, beautiful, rich and had Roy Cohn as a sponsor.’" (New York Times, | December 14, 1992)

Financial Matters

• 1983: Maryanne Trump Barry’s federal judicial position initially paid a salary of $70,300 per year. “President Reagan today nominated Maryanne Trump Barry, the first assistant United States attorney for New Jersey, to be a district judge in Trenton. ‘I am delighted,’ Mrs. Barry said of her nomination to the $70,300- a-year post.” (New York Times, September 15, 1983)
• Maryanne Trump Barry bought a second private home in Palm Beach, near Donald Trump’s Mar-a-Lago resort, for $11.5 million. “Donald Trump's sister, Maryanne Barry, a U.S. district judge in New York, has just paid $11.5 million for Alyne Massey's 10,769-square-foot home at 1125 S. Ocean Blvd., near The Mar-a-Lago Club. It's also near another home Barry owns just north of her brother's club. Massey's late husband, Jack, a legendary businessman, bought Kentucky Fried Chicken from the colonel himself. He also founded the massive Hospital Corp. of America. Alyne Massey, a former society reporter for the Nashville Banner, still maintains a home in Music City.” (Palm Beach Post, September 27, 2004)

Trump Barry resigned amid an investigation of judicial misconduct stemming from alleged tax fraud

• February, 2019: Maryanne Trump Barry's abrupt resignation from the federal judiciary terminated an investigation into alleged tax fraud committed while she had been a federal judge. "Barry, 82, is reportedly an inactive judge and one step from full retirement. She resigned in February. On Feb. 1, individuals who brought complaints to the judicial conduct council’s attention received a letter from a court official saying the probe was receiving the council’s ‘full attention,’ the Times reported. The investigation has since been dropped, as retired judges are not subject to conduct investigations. Scott Shuchart, a lawyer who filed one of the complaints against Barry, told the Times he finds it ‘galling’ that a minor change in her retirement status inoculates her against an investigation." (Talking Points Memo, | April 11, 2019)
  • While the underlying crimes that Maryanne Trump Barry may have committed could not have been prosecuted due to the statute of limitations, they could have been investigated as an instance of judicial misconduct had she not abruptly resigned her post in the wake of a formal ethics complaint. "All this happened a long time ago, and the statute of limitations would have expired on any possible crimes. But some shrewd people noted that there is no statute of limitations on judicial ethics investigations and filed a complaint against not Donald Trump but Maryanne. This would have launched an investigation of her that would, were she found guilty of wrongdoing, have implicated the president as well." (Vox, | April 11, 2019)
  • Maryanne Trump Barry filed her resignation paperwork ten days after an investigation into potential judicial misconduct was opened. "Now, according to Russ Buettner and Susan Craig of the New York Times, Barry has retired, which renders the investigation moot. Their reporting indicates that this all actually happened in February. The complaint was filed in October, and then on February 1, a court official notified the people who filed the complaint that it was ‘receiving the full attention’ of investigators. Ten days later, Barry filed her paperwork to resign." (Vox, | April 11, 2019)
  • October 16, 2018: The Judicial Conference of the United States Committee on Financial Disclosure released Maryanne Trump Barry's financial disclosure records from 2012 to 2016 to RAGEPATH a few days after she resigned, in response to a request that had been submitted in August of 2018. "This letter is in response to your August 10,, 2018, Request for Examination of Report Filed by Judicial Officer of Judicial Employee, requesting the 1983-2018 financial disclosure reports for Circuit Judge Maryanne Trump Barry of the United States Court of Appeals for the Third Circuit. In accordance with section 105(d) of the Ethics in Government Act of 1978, this office only maintains financial disclosure reports for six calendar years. [...] Please note, Judge Barry was not required to file a financial disclosure report after calendar year 2016." (Letter to RAGEPATH counsel from Counsel to Committee on Financial Disclosure, October 16, 2018)
• Maryanne Trump Barry was the alleged beneficiary of a scheme established by her father which involved a company controlled by Maryanne and Donald Trump selling equipment to buildings owned by Fred Trump at wildly inflated prices, thus bypassing gift and estate taxes while simultaneously providing an excuse to raise rents on rent-controlled apartments owned by their father. "Some of the Trump family shenanigans uncovered by the Times have a look of actual criminality to them. The most striking of these, to my eye, began in 1992. The Trump kids, including Donald and Maryanne, were set up as the owners of a company called All County Building Supply & Maintenance. All County then sold boilers, refrigerators, cleaning supplies, and other equipment at unusually high prices to buildings owned by Fred Trump. On its face, this looks a lot like an illegal effort to evade gift and estate tax by masking it as a business transaction. What’s more, Fred Trump then compounded the offense because the buildings in question were rent-regulated and he cited the high prices paid as legal justification for rent increases." (Vox, | April 11, 2019)

Other Matters

Maryanne Trump attended the Kew Forest Academy with her other siblings.