Tycoon Donald Trump with sister Maryanne Trump Barry, at a press conference after visiting the house in Tong, on the Isle of Lewis, where his mother was brought up before she emigrated to the United States.
Andrew Milligan | Pa Images | Getty Images
Maryanne Trump Barry, a federal appellate judge and the older sister of former President Donald Trump, has died at age 86.
Barry was pronounced dead at her Fifth Avenue apartment in Manhattan by medical workers who were called to the scene after 4 a.m. ET on Monday, a spokesman for the New York Police Department told CNBC. There were no signs of trauma or foul play.
Barry was appointed to the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Third Circuit in 1999 by then-President Bill Clinton. She largely avoided the spotlight that was constantly pointed at her brother, first as a television host and business personality and then as the president of the United States.
She spent two decades on the Philadelphia-based appeals court before retiring in the midst of a civil misconduct investigation related to her family’s alleged tax-dodging schemes.
Her retirement in 2019 ended that probe, which centered on whether Barry violated judicial conduct rules by participating in the schemes reported in a bombshell New York Times investigation.
In 2020, Maryanne’s niece, Mary Trump, revealed she had secretly recorded audio of Barry criticizing her brother Donald for his “lying” and “cruelty” as president.
In those recordings, which were provided to The Washington Post, Barry recounted how Donald had helped secure her nomination to the federal judiciary by having his then-attorney Roy Cohn place calls to the Reagan administration.
It was “the only favor I ever asked for in my whole life,” Barry said in those recordings.
But she also tore into her brother, telling Mary, “He has no principles. None.”
A spokesman for the former president, 77, did not respond to CNBC’s requests for comment.
Donald Trump, who is running for the 2024 Republican presidential nomination, and middle sister Elizabeth Trump Grau are Maryanne’s only surviving siblings.
Fred Trump Jr., died at age 42 in 1981 of complications from alcoholism. Robert Trump, Donald’s younger brother, died in 2020 at age 71.
