According to an excerpt of the book, Trump paid Joe Shapiro, "a smart kid with a reputation for being a good test taker," to take his SAT for him.
In her new, explosive book, President Trump's estranged niece Mary Trump reportedly makes the claim that a young Trump enlisted a friend to take his SAT for him. According to an excerpt of the book, that friend was Joe Shapiro, "a smart kid with a reputation for being a good test taker."
Shapiro was a graduate of Harvard Law. He died of cancer in 1999. On Wednesday, Shapiro's widow, former tennis champion Pam Shriver, denied the allegation. "There's not a chance that he helped Trump with the SAT test," she said.
The White House has also denied the claim and other allegations contained in the book.
Also on Wednesday, DailyMail.com unearthed a photo of Mary Trump sitting at the Resolute Desk in the Oval Office. The image was taken in April 2017, when the entire Trump family was invited to the White House to celebrate the 80th birthday of Trump's sister, Maryanne.
In her new book, Mary Trump writes that Donald Trump's "bragging and false bravado is not directed at the audience in front of him, but at his long dead father."
She also says that Trump displays "narcissism ... bullying and grandiosity" and describes a dysfunctional family under the domination of an autocratic patriarch, Fred Trump, who she claims heaped scorn on his eldest son, Fred Jr. — Mary's father. Mary relates a disturbing scene the night her father died of alcoholism in 1981.
"As my father lay dying alone, Donald went to the movies."
The bitter family feud was triggered in 1999, when Mary Trump and her brother claimed they had been cheated out of millions of dollars in inheritance from their grandfather. The case was settled out of court.
Alice Hafter Frankston, a friend of Mary, is speaking out about the book.
"She wants people to be aware of who's in office, who's running the country who's one of the most powerful people in the world, and how he became the way he is," Frankston said.
As the national controversy unfolds, Mary Trump has been laying low in a $2 million condo in Cape Cod. Although her book doesn't come out until next Tuesday, it's already at the top of Amazon's bestseller list.
RELATED STORIES
