Journalist Michael Wolff’s assertions that Melania Trump met Donald Trump through a modeling agency connected to Jeffrey Epstein were withdrawn by The Daily Beast. The First Lady’s legal team formally challenged the removal.
Note from the Editor. Following the publication of this story, First Lady Melania Trump’s lawyer wrote to The Beast to contest the article’s headline and framing. The outlet stated, “The Beast has removed the article and apologizes for any confusion or misunderstanding after reviewing the matter.” https://www.thedailybeast.com/epstein-this-story-has-been-removed/ is the new URL that the original hyperlink points to.
This past Saturday, Wolff made the accusations in an interview with Joanna Coles, the chief content officer for the Daily Beast, on the Daily Beast Podcast. The topic of conversation was President Trump’s previous relationship with Epstein. Trump later accused Epstein of stealing employees from his Mar-a-Lago club in Florida, despite the fact that the two had been pals for years. While awaiting trial on federal sex trafficking accusations involving kids, Epstein committed suicide in a Manhattan jail.
Wolff asserted in the interview that Melania played a significant role in this Epstein relationship.
This Epstein interaction entailed a lot of [Melania]. Trump and Epstein are both involved with this model situation, and she is introduced by a model agent. “That’s how she was introduced to Trump, and Epstein knows her very well,” Wolff said.
President Trump is still under pressure from his MAGA base to reveal the information in the so-called Epstein files, especially in light of Attorney General Pam Bondi’s mistakes. To choose conservative influencers, Bondi sent out binders dubbed Epstein Files: Phase One in February. Trump fans, who have long spread conspiracy theories that Epstein was a CIA operative engaged in sexual blackmail, were irritated by the documents’ absence of fresh disclosures. Additionally, some people still contest that Epstein committed suicide.
Later, Bondi made remarks that some people took to mean that she had a complete list of Epstein’s clients on her desk. In June, she made it clear that she was not referring to a customer list, but rather only the Epstein file. In a subsequent two-page memo, the Department of Justice denied the existence of such a client list and stated that there was no reliable proof of blackmail.
Despite the DOJ’s announcement, some Trump supporters continue to voice their displeasure with the president by calling for more openness.
Since then, Trump has called his disavowed fans who are still fixated on Epstein weaklings who have fallen for a fraud.
Trump stated on TruthSocial, “My PAST supporters have bought into this bullshit, hook, line, and sinker. They haven’t learned their lesson and probably never will, even after being conned by the Lunatic Left for eight long years.” Their new scam is what we will always call the Jeffrey Epstein Hoax.
In the past, Wolff’s credibility as a journalist has been questioned. During an appearance on Real Time with Bill Maher in 2018, he asserted that President Trump was having an affair and hinted that his book Fire and Fury had a clue to the woman’s identity. Readers took this to be a reference to Nikki Haley, the UN ambassador at the time, who vehemently disagreed with the insinuation, calling it “disgusting” and “highly offensive.”
Wolff denied ever implying that Haley was engaged with Trump in a subsequent interview on Morning Joe, although he did add, “I found it puzzling that she would deny something she was not accused of.”Co-host Mika Brzezinski abruptly interrupted the interview after accusing Wolff of enjoying slurring a lady.
Furthermore, a number of individuals quoted in Fire and Fury eventually denied saying the things that Wolff said they had said.
According to a New Republic feature by journalist Michell Cottle:
The scenarios in his columns are more the product of Wolff’s imagination than of factual knowledge of what happened; they are not exactly recreated.
“I was not involved in writing the now-pulled Daily Beast article,” Michael Wolff told Fox News Digital.
Requests for response were not immediately answered by the White House or The Daily Beast.
