Author Michael Wolff has sued first lady Melania Trump, charging that she threatened a $1 billion legal action against him to stop him from reporting and writing about her alleged ties to Jeffrey Epstein.
"Mrs. Trump's claims are made for the sole purpose of harassing, intimidating, punishing or otherwise maliciously inhibiting Mr. Wolff's free exercise of speech," said the suit, which was filed Tuesday in New York Supreme Court in Manhattan.
The filing includes as an attachment a letter Trump's attorney, Alejandro Brito, sent to Wolff, the author of “Fire and Fury,” last week demanding that he retract and apologize for public comments he has made linking his client to Epstein, the notorious sex offender, and that he make "a monetary proposal to Mrs. Trump to ameliorate the harm that you have caused."
Trump has been aggressive in pushing back against what her lawyers describe as false reports linking to her Epstein, and her office said in a statement Wednesday that she "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."
The letter from Brito cited comments Wolff had made to The Daily Beast this year in a story headlined “Melania Trump ‘Very Involved’ in Epstein Scandal: Author,” as well as comments he made on a Daily Beast podcast.
The website later issued a retraction and an apology. The full text of the retracted Daily Beast article is no longer available online. Instead, the publication said in an editor’s note, “Upon reflection, we have determined that the article did not meet our standards and has therefore been removed from our platforms.”
Wolff's suit says the statements in the article were taken out of context, and he maintained he had not defamed Trump.
Trump has not been accused of any wrongdoing connected to Epstein. Epstein had been friends with Donald Trump in the 1990s and early 2000s.
Epstein died by suicide in his New York jail cell in 2019 while he was awaiting trial on federal sex trafficking charges. His death sparked numerous conspiracy theories and vows during the 2024 campaign from Donald Trump and his allies of increased transparency into Epstein's case and any possible accomplices.
The conspiracy theories picked up steam in July, after the Justice Department announced it had reviewed the case, determined no other people would be charged and said no further information would be released. That led to bipartisan calls for the Justice Department to release its investigative files.
Wolff's suit said he has "accrued many hours of interviews of Jeffrey Epstein conducted over several years" and that the first lady's legal “threats are also intended to shut down legitimate inquiry into the Epstein matter which the Trumps and their collaborators have at every turn sought to impede and suppress.”
In a video Wednesday on Instagram, Wolff said he hopes to be able to depose the Trumps as part of his legal action.
“To be perfectly honest, I’d like nothing better than to get Donald Trump and Melania Trump under oath in front of a court reporter and actually find out all of the details of their relationship with Epstein,” he said.
