WASHINGTON (AP) – First lady Melania Trump asked Hunter Biden to withdraw comments, linking her to sex trafficker Jeffrey Epstein and threatening to do if he doesn’t.
Trump gave two comments from former President Joe Biden’s son, Biden, in an interview with British journalist Andrew Callaghan this month. He claimed Epstein introduced the First Lady to current President Donald Trump.
Melania Trump’s attorney Alejandro Brito wrote in a letter to Biden that the statements were false, slanderous and “extremely mean.” Biden’s remarks were widely circulated on social media and reported by media around the world, causing the First Lady to “suffer overwhelming financial and reputational damage.”
Biden made Epstein’s comments in a sprawling interview, slamming him among the “elite” and others in the Democratic Party that he said he had ruined his father before he quit last year’s presidential election.
Biden said in a comment from Trump: “Epstein introduced Melania to Trump. Biden attributed this claim to writer Michael Wolff, whom Trump devalued it as a “third-level reporter” in June. He accused Wolff of making up stories to sell books.
The first lady’s threat responded to her husband’s favorable strategy, who actively used litigation to follow critics. Public figures like Trump face a high standard that can succeed in defamation lawsuits.
The president and the first lady have long said that they were introduced by Paolo Zampolli, modeling agent at the 1998 New York Fashion Week party.
The letter is dated August 6 and reported on Wednesday by Fox News Digital.
Attorney Abbe Lowell, who had represented Biden in a criminal case, did not immediately resolve Brito’s letter, and he did not immediately respond to a request for comment late Wednesday.
___
