Donald Trump’s eldest sister Maryanne Trump Barry has died at the age of 86.
Ms Trump Barry, a former federal judge, died at her home in Manhattan and was found early on Monday morning, according to reports.
The New York City Police Department said an 86-year-old woman was found unconscious and unresponsive inside the bedroom of a Fifth Avenue apartment and was later confirmed dead.
An investigation is ongoing, police said.
Mr Trump, 77 – who is facing a civil fraud trial in New York – is yet to comment on his sister’s death.
However, his eldest son, Donald Trump Jr, spoke briefly about his aunt as he left a Manhattan court on Monday, calling it a “rough day for myself and my family”.
Mr Trump Jr told reporters he had been told the news as he pulled up to the court on Monday.
“I’m very close with her grandson. We hang out all the time. And so it’s obviously a rough day for that,” he said.
Ms Trump Barry, who was born in Queens, New York, in 1937, was the eldest child of Fred Trump and Mary Anne MacLeod Trump.
While working in the US Attorney’s Office, she was appointed to the US District Court for New Jersey by President Ronald Reagan in 1983.
Maryanne Trump Barry at her brother’s inauguration in 2017
She was later appointed to the US Court of Appeals for the Third Circuit in Philadelphia in 1999 by President Bill Clinton.
Ms Barry served in that role until 2017 until her younger brother was inaugurated as US president, according to the Associated Press.
Her retirement as an appellate judge in 2019 ended a civil misconduct inquiry following allegations in a New York Times article that she and her siblings, including then-President Trump, evaded inheritance taxes.
Read more:
All you need to know about the legal labyrinth facing Donald Trump
Trump compares himself to Nelson Mandela
She had stayed largely out of the spotlight during her brother’s presidency, but drew headlines after her niece, Mary Trump, revealed that she had secretly recorded her aunt while promoting a book that denounced the former president.
In the recordings, Ms Trump Barry could be heard sharply criticising her brother, at one point saying the former president “has no principles” and is “cruel”.
Mr Trump’s younger brother Robert Trump died in 2020 aged 71, while the former president’s first wife, Ivana Trump, died last year.
His older brother Fred Trump Jr died of a heart attack in 1981 aged 42.
Mr Trump’s only surviving sister is Elizabeth Trump Grau, 81.
