Author Michael Wolff filed a lawsuit on Tuesday in New York State Supreme Court seeking unspecified damages from Melania Trump claiming she and The Donald threatened a $1 billion lawsuit if he didn’t retract Epstein-related statements he made about her.
Wolff filed on the day of the deadline set for Wolff to retract statements, issue an apology and pay damages.
“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,” Wolff said in the filing.
- SLAPP is an acronym for strategic lawsuits against public participation, and are designed to silence speech and intimidate recipients with the threat of defending expensive lawsuits.
Wolff interviewed Epstein before his death, and discussed those interviews with the Daily Beast. Melania’s threats were based on those statements and social media videos. Wolff claimed that some of the statements were incomplete phrases and were taken out of context. The lawsuit claimed that some of the statements were protected free speech, such as claiming the Trumps were in a “sham or trophy marriage,” a fair and justified opinion.
Wolff also said true statements were made about Melanie being very involved in Epstein’s social circle — where she met her future husband, and that Donald Trump liked to have sex with his friend’s wives and first slept with Melania Trump on Epstein’s private jet.
Wolff’s lawsuit said it would be fair to find out how Melania fit into the Epstein story, and “find out what happened in Mr. Trump’s and Epstein’s 10 years of pursuing models, including supermodels, runway models, catalog models, Eastern European models, and girls who just dreamed of being models.”