Michael Wolff Launches Bombshell Lawsuit Against Melania Trump Over Epstein Allegations

Best-sell­ing author and jour­nal­ist Michael Wolff has filed an explo­sive law­suit against First Lady Mela­nia Trump, mark­ing an unprece­dent­ed legal clash between a jour­nal­ist and a sit­ting president’s wife.

The law­suit, filed in New York State court late Tues­day, accus­es Mela­nia Trump of attempt­ing to sti­fle free speech after she alleged­ly threat­ened to sue Wolff for more than $1 bil­lion. The First Lady’s legal team had accused Wolff of mak­ing “false, defam­a­to­ry, and lewd state­ments” con­cern­ing her rela­tion­ship with for­mer financier and con­vict­ed sex offend­er Jef­frey Epstein.

In her let­ter, attor­ney Ale­jan­dro Brito claimed Wolff had made “extreme­ly sala­cious” alle­ga­tions that reached mil­lions world­wide — includ­ing the claim that Epstein once told asso­ciates Mela­nia first slept with Don­ald Trump aboard his pri­vate jet.

Wolff Fights Back with Anti-SLAPP Lawsuit

Wolff, co-host of Inside Trump’s Head — a hit pod­cast pro­duced by The Dai­ly Beast — said Melania’s legal threat amounts to a Strate­gic Law­suit Against Pub­lic Par­tic­i­pa­tion (SLAPP), designed to intim­i­date and silence jour­nal­ists.

“I did not want to be in a law­suit, but I also am a jour­nal­ist and have been one for 40 years,” Wolff said in a state­ment. “Mrs. Trump’s threat­ened law­suit is what lawyers call a SLAPP suit. Its pur­pose was to intim­i­date and silence me, as Don­ald Trump has done to so many news orga­ni­za­tions and reporters.”

New York’s anti-SLAPP law pro­tects indi­vid­u­als from law­suits intend­ed to chill free speech on mat­ters of pub­lic con­cern. Wolff’s fil­ing seeks puni­tive dam­ages and court autho­riza­tion to ques­tion both Mela­nia and Don­ald Trump under oath about their alleged deal­ings with Epstein.

Allegations of Intimidation and Suppression

In the com­plaint, Wolff’s attor­neys accuse the Trumps of a pat­tern of legal intim­i­da­tion aimed at sup­press­ing uncom­fort­able report­ing.

“These threat­ened legal actions are designed to cre­ate a cli­mate of fear in the nation so that peo­ple can­not freely or con­fi­dent­ly exer­cise their First Amend­ment rights,” the law­suit reads. “The 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.”

The fil­ing fur­ther alleges that Melania’s defama­tion claims “lack sub­stan­tial basis in law or in fact” and were made “for the pur­pose of harass­ing, intim­i­dat­ing, pun­ish­ing, or oth­er­wise mali­cious­ly inhibit­ing Mr. Wolff’s free exer­cise of speech.”

The Background and Fallout

Mela­nia Trump’s legal team point­ed to Wolff’s com­ments made on Inside Trump’s Head in an episode titled “Trump’s Epstein Scan­dal Can’t Stop, Won’t Stop.” Fol­low­ing her com­plaint, The Dai­ly Beast retract­ed the relat­ed arti­cle and removed por­tions of the pod­cast ref­er­enc­ing the First Lady.

“The sto­ry did not meet our stan­dards and has there­fore been removed from our plat­forms,” The Dai­ly Beast said in a state­ment. “We apol­o­gize to the First Lady and our read­ers.”

Despite the retrac­tion, Wolff has pressed for­ward, fram­ing his law­suit as a defense of jour­nal­is­tic free­dom. “As a reporter, I’ve nev­er had the oppor­tu­ni­ty to ask some­one ques­tions when their answers have to be giv­en under oath,” he said. “I look for­ward to ask­ing Mela­nia and Don­ald Trump about the mat­ters at issue in this case, includ­ing their rela­tion­ship with Jef­frey Epstein.”

A History of Tension

Don­ald Trump and Epstein were long­time asso­ciates before report­ed­ly falling out around 2004. The renewed scruti­ny around Epstein’s con­nec­tions to pow­er­ful fig­ures con­tin­ues to rip­ple through U.S. pol­i­tics.

Wolff, who rose to promi­nence with his 2018 best­seller Fire and Fury: Inside the Trump White House, has writ­ten mul­ti­ple books about Trump’s pres­i­den­cy and fre­quent­ly appears as a polit­i­cal com­men­ta­tor.

In his law­suit, he warns that the Trumps and their “MAGA myr­mi­dons” use legal intim­i­da­tion to “extract unjus­ti­fied pay­ments” and demand “North Kore­an-style con­fes­sions and apolo­gies.”

The White House has not yet com­ment­ed on the case.