Maryanne Trump Barry, the older sister of former President Donald Trump, has died Monday at the age of 86, the New York City Police Department has confirmed to Fox News.
Barry was a former federal appellate judge who retired in April 2019, according to the New York Times. The newspaper, citing people familiar with the matter, reports that she passed away at her home in New York City’s Manhattan borough, with one person saying she was found this morning.
In 2016, Trump called his sister a “highly respected judge” while noting they disagree on public policy issues.
Four years later, Trump dismissed secret audio recordings released of Barry saying he had “no principles” and was “cruel.”
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“Every day it’s something else, who cares?” Trump said in a statement at the time, according to the Washington Post.
The Post’s story about the recordings appeared one day after the White House hosted a private memorial service for Robert Trump, the president’s younger brother, who died Aug. 15, 2020, at age 71.
The recordings of Barry were made by Trump’s niece, Mary Trump, who published a scathing tell-all book on the president and their family.
“Donald is cruel,” Barry told her niece in the secretly recorded conversation in 2018.
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“All he wants to do is appeal to his base. He has no principles. None. None. And his base, I mean my God, if you were a religious person, you want to help people. Not do this,” she allegedly said in the recording published by the Post, referring to the Trump administrations’s so-called zero-tolerance policy at the U.S.-Mexico border that led to children being separated from their parents amid immigration court hearings. The policy was later rescinded.
During her legal career, Barry worked as a federal prosecutor before being nominated by then-President Ronald Reagan to the Federal District Court in New Jersey in 1983, the New York Times reports.
In 1999, then-President Bill Clinton appointed her to the United States Court of Appeals for the Third Circuit, the newspaper added.
Shortly after Trump was sworn in as president in 2017, Barry then told that court she would stop hearing cases, according to the New York Times.
Fox News’ Brie Stimson contributed to this report.
