Author and journalist Michael Wolff has filed a lawsuit against First Lady Melania Trump.
He alleged she threatened to sue him for more than $1 billion if he did not retract statements connecting her to the late financier and sex offender Jeffrey Epstein.
Wolff filed the lawsuit on Tuesday in the New York State Supreme Court, seeking unspecified damages.
Highlights
- Michael Wolff sued Melania Trump for threatening a $1 billion suit over statements linking her to Jeffrey Epstein.
- Wolff alleges Melania's threats aim to silence public discussion of Trumps' Epstein ties and suppress free speech.
- The lawsuit claims the Trump family uses costly legal actions to intimidate critics and extract confessions.
Journalist Michael Wolff has filed a lawsuit against Melania Trump
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He claims Melania’s threats were an attempt to silence him and prevent public discussion about the Trumps’ past association with Epstein.
“Mrs. Trump and her ‘unitary executive’ husband along with their MAGA myrmidons have made a practice of threatening those who speak against them with costly SLAPP actions in order to silence their speech,” the lawsuit stated.
Wolff accused the couple of creating a “climate of fear” that discourages journalists and citizens from exercising their First Amendment rights.
“It is not defamatory to say that Mrs. Trump is actively managing the present White House response to the controversy,” Wolff said in the filing. “Nor is it defamatory to say that Mrs. Trump was involved in Epstein's rather expansive social circle.”
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The legal action came on the day Melania’s attorney, Alejandro Brito, had set a deadline for Wolff to retract his comments, issue a public apology, and pay damages.
In an October 15 letter, Brito warned that Melania would be “left with no alternative” but to sue for over $1 billion since the statements caused her “overwhelming reputational and financial harm.”
A spokesperson for the First Lady told The Independent on Tuesday, “First Lady Melania Trump is proud to continue standing up to those who spread malicious and defamatory falsehoods as they desperately try to get undeserved attention and money from their unlawful conduct.”
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Wolff’s lawsuit argues that the threats were meant to suppress reporting on any possible ties between the Trumps and Epstein, who died in a New York jail in 2019 while awaiting trial on federal sex trafficking charges.
He argued that the Trump family has "made a practice of threatening those who speak against them” with costly legal actions “to silence their speech, to intimidate their critics generally, and to extract unjustified payments and North Korean style confessions and apologies.”
Wolff had conducted interviews with Epstein before his death, details of which he has been releasing in media interviews.
Wolff said it was statements he made to The Daily Beast and in three social media videos that Melania has sued him over, but claims that some of the statements were taken out of context.
Wolff alleged the First Lady threatened to sue him for his comments connecting her to Epstein
He also said that he made no suggestion that Melania was involved in Epstein’s crimes.
Some other comments, such as his statement that the Trumps were in a “sham marriage, trophy marriage,” he argued, were protected by freedom of speech since it was a “fair and justified” statement of opinion.
Wolff has previously made statements about Melania being “very involved” in Epstein’s social circle.
In another interview, he said Trump liked to have sex with his friend’s wives, and he first slept with Melania on Epstein’s private jet.
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The private jet, dubbed the ‘Lolita Express,’ was reportedly used to fly young women between Epstein’s homes in New York and Florida. It was nicknamed after Vladimir Nabokov’s novel Lolita, about a middle-aged man’s obsession with a 12-year-old girl.
Victims say the plane had a large bed and padded floors for sexual activity.
Wolff’s lawsuit argued that it was fair game to question how Melania fits into the Epstein story.
Wolff said he intends to use the case to question both the president and the First Lady under oath about their relationship with Epstein.
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Wolff is a Trump biographer, having published a dozen books about the president, and this latest dispute adds to a long-running feud between him and the Trumps.
The White House previously attempted to block publication of Wolff’s 2018 bestseller Fire and Fury, which portrayed chaos inside the first Trump administration.
Earlier this year, Trump dismissed Wolff as a “Third Rate Reporter” and called his upcoming book “a total FAKE JOB, just like the other JUNK he wrote.”
Wolff’s lawsuit invokes New York’s anti-SLAPP law, which protects journalists and citizens from lawsuits meant to silence public criticism.
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“While the First Amendment has not changed radically in the country, there's been an attack and an attempt to discredit the press and journalists generally that have led to the changed atmosphere,” Wolff’s lawyer, David Korzenik, told Axios.
In August, Melania Trump threatened to sue Joe Biden’s son, Hunter Biden, over his claim that Epstein introduced Melania to Trump, based on Wolff’s interview.
In a corresponding interview on Channel 5 with Andrew Callaghan’s YouTube program, Biden was offered an opportunity to apologize to Melania Trump. He said: “F--- that, that's not going to happen.”