Maryanne Trump Barry, a former federal judge who was an older sister of Donald J. Trump and served as both his protector and critic throughout their lives, has died. She was 86.
Ms. Barry died at her home on the Upper East Side of Manhattan, according to two people familiar with the matter. One of them said she had been found early Monday morning. Neither person specified a cause.
Ms. Barry, the widow of John Barry, a veteran trial and appellate lawyer, had been a federal judge in New Jersey, a position that Mr. Trump’s fixer, the lawyer Roy M. Cohn, was credited with helping her attain during President Ronald Reagan’s tenure. She retired from the bench in 2019, at a time when inquiries were brewing after a New York Times investigation into the family’s tax practices.
Mr. Trump seemed to heed the words of few people as much as he did his sister’s, according to confidants. But they had a significant fissure in their relationship in the final year of his presidency, when their niece Mary L. Trump, who was promoting a memoir about their family, released audio recordings of her aunt speaking critically about the president.
Mr. Trump, 77, who is the front-runner for the Republican presidential nomination even as he faces dozens of criminal charges in four cases, has had a number of personal losses in the last several years.
His younger brother, Robert S. Trump, died in 2020, and the president held a funeral service for him at the White House. His first wife, Ivana Trump, died in 2022.
A spokesman for Mr. Trump did not respond to a request for comment.
This article will be updated.
