Melania Trump Forces Apology Over ‘Defamatory’ Epstein Claims

WASHINGTON, DC: The Dai­ly Beast has removed an arti­cle link­ing first lady Mela­nia Trump to dis­graced financier Jef­frey Epstein after receiv­ing a legal chal­lenge from her attor­neys, mark­ing anoth­er esca­la­tion in the White House­’s effort to quash what it views as defam­a­to­ry report­ing.

The now-delet­ed arti­cle cit­ed author and jour­nal­ist Michael Wolff, who alleged dur­ing a recent pod­cast appear­ance that Mela­nia had been intro­duced to Don­ald Trump through a mod­el­ing agent affil­i­at­ed with Epstein, a claim Wolff pro­vid­ed no evi­dence for

Although the orig­i­nal sto­ry has been tak­en down, the video remains avail­able on YouTube, with the rel­e­vant con­ver­sa­tion begin­ning around the 26:36 mark. This is the part which the first lady’s lawyers found objec­tion­able.

Daily Beast deletes article after legal pushback from Melania Trump’s attorneys

Fol­low­ing pub­li­ca­tion, Mela­nia Trump’s legal team issued a let­ter con­test­ing both the head­line and the fram­ing of the arti­cle.

Editor’s Note. After this sto­ry was pub­lished, The Beast received a let­ter from first lady Mela­nia Trump’s attor­ney chal­leng­ing the head­line and fram­ing of the arti­cle,” reads an editor’s note now replac­ing the arti­cle. “After review­ing the mat­ter, the Beast has tak­en down the arti­cle and apol­o­gizes for any con­fu­sion or mis­un­der­stand­ing.”

The article’s orig­i­nal URL now redi­rects to a place­hold­er.

Michael Wolff ties Mela­nia Trump’s mod­el­ing roots to Jef­frey Epstein’s social cir­cle

Michael Wolff made the explo­sive alle­ga­tions on ‘The Dai­ly Beast Pod­cast’ in a con­ver­sa­tion with con­tent chief Joan­na Coles, claim­ing Mela­nia Trump was “very involved” in Jef­frey Epstein’s social cir­cles and had met Don­ald Trump through a mod­el­ing agent tied to both men.

Jeffrey Epstein controversy intensifies among Donald Trump’s base

The take­down of the arti­cle came at a time of renewed Repub­li­can ten­sion over Jef­frey Epstein case, with Pres­i­dent Don­ald Trump increas­ing­ly at odds with his own base over calls for trans­paren­cy

Ear­li­er this year, Attor­ney Gen­er­al Pam Bon­dihand­ed out binders labeled “Epstein Files” to con­ser­v­a­tive influ­encers in an attempt to ease pres­sure, but the doc­u­ments failed to reveal any­thing new, trig­ger­ing an out­cry. Bon­di lat­er implied that a “client list” was “sit­ting” on her desk, though she walked the com­ment back, say­ing she meant the file, not an actu­al list.

The Depart­ment of Jus­tice even­tu­al­ly issued a brief two-page memo stat­ing that no “client list” exist­ed and assert­ing there was no “cred­i­ble evi­dence” that Jef­frey Epstein had black­mailed oth­ers through his s*x traf­fick­ing net­work. How­ev­er, the release did lit­tle to sat­is­fy grow­ing demands for full trans­paren­cy, par­tic­u­lar­ly among Trump’s base, where con­spir­a­cy the­o­ries con­tin­ue to thrive.