Journalist Michael Wolff has launched a lawsuit against Melania Trump after the first lady threatened legal action against him for defamation, the Daily Beast reports.
Wolff, the reporter and author of books about President Donald Trump including Fire and Fury and Siege, sued Melania Trump in New York under the state’s anti-SLAPP law. SLAPP stands for “strategic lawsuits against public participation”; the law aims to protect journalists and others from meritless suits designed to silence them by burdening them with legal fees.
Earlier this month, Wolff’s lawyers say, Melania Trump threatened to sue Wolff for $1 billion over Wolff’s statements, quoted in a since-retracted Daily Beast article, and in videos posted on Instagram, that she had sex with Donald Trump on Jeffrey Epstein’s private jet and that she was involved in Epstein’s social circle. Epstein, the financier, convicted sex offender, and onetime friend of Donald Trump, died in prison in 2019; his death was ruled a suicide. The Trump administration has faced calls to release the Justice Department’s files about Epstein but has declined to do so.
Wolff told the Daily Beast, “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.”
Michael Schaub is a contributing writer.
