Whoa! Michael Wolff Sues Melania

The case is the first time Melania Trump has been sued as First Lady and appears to be the first time a president’s wife has been the subject of court action. Wolff is asking the court for permission to question Melania and Donald Trump under oath about their dealings with Epstein.

Wolff’s attorneys filed the case in a New York State court late Tuesday after the First Lady’s legal team sent him a letter threatening a lawsuit for “over $1 billion in damages.”

Melania accused Wolff of making “false, defamatory, and lewd statements” in a letter from her attorney Alejandro Brito, saying he had made “extremely salacious” allegations that have reached tens of millions of people worldwide. The letter from Brito demanded that he retract statements including that Epstein had claimed Melania first slept with Trump on the late pedophile’s private jet—or face being sued for at least $1 billion.

Wolff is using so-called anti-SLAPP laws for the case. The laws ban powerful people from using legal actions to shut down journalism, which are known as Strategic Lawsuits Against Public Participation.

Wolff said bringing the case was a “difficult decision” and said, “I did not want to be in a lawsuit, but I also am a journalist and have been one for 40 years.

“I’ve written four books about Donald Trump and have never been sued. Mrs. Trump’s threatened lawsuit is what lawyers call a Strategic Lawsuit Against Public Participation, a SLAPP suit. Its purpose was to intimidate and silence me, as Donald Trump has done to so many news organizations and reporters.

“Fortunately, New York has an Anti-SLAPP law. This law protects people sued for making statements involving matters of public concern. In order to avail myself of this protection, I choose to begin an action against her, rather than have her threats hanging over my head indefinitely.”

Wolff is asking the court to shut down Melania Trump’s threats and pay punitive damages—and to allow him to question her and her husband under oath about their relationships with Epstein.

That will be one for the books if it happens. Personally, I’m not holding my breath. Melania and Trump have both gone out of their way to distance themself from Epstein. Melania has gone to great lengths to have a section of a book in the UK which opined that Epstein introduced Melania to Donald Trump pull the current version of the book and rework the printing plates to reflect a different story.

Basically, the story was told along the lines of Paolo Zampoli, Melania’s then-modeling agent, introducing her to Epstein, who was a friend of Donald Trump. It’s splitting hairs whether Zampoli spoke the words, “Melania, this is Donald,” or whether Jeffrey Epstein did.

But not to Melania’s way of thinking. She wants zero contact with Epstein, even something as trivial as a casual introduction to another party goer. That can only be interpreted as a sign that Jeffrey Epstein’s doing were that poisonous, for it to matter that much.

And indeed, the late Virginia Guiffre’s posthumous book does tell many horrific tales of severe sexual abuse and violence against her, and her begging Epstein on bended knee to help her. Epstein’s reply to Guiffre’s tale of physical violence and cruelty? “It happens that way sometimes.”

So I can’t say I blame Melania for wanting to distance herself but with all the documentary evidence, photos, video clips, showing the Trumps with Epstein and Ghislaine Maxwell, it really is an effort in futility.

Watch for this Michael Wolff case to develop. It has cause celebre stamped all over it.