Melania Trump threatens to sue Hunter Biden over ‘salacious’ Epstein comments
US first lady Melania Trump has demanded that Hunter Biden retract comments linking her to sex trafficker Jeffrey Epstein and threatened to sue if he does not.
Ms Trump takes issue with two comments Mr Biden, son of former president Joe Biden, made in an interview this month with American journalist Andrew Callaghan.
He alleged that Epstein introduced the first lady to now-President Donald Trump.
The statements are false, defamatory and “extremely salacious” Melania Trump’s lawyer, Alejandro Brito, wrote in a letter to Mr Biden.
Social media
Mr Biden’s remarks were widely disseminated on social media and reported by media outlets around the world, causing the first lady “to suffer overwhelming financial and reputational harm”, he wrote.
Mr Biden made the Epstein comments during a sprawling interview in which he lashed out at “elites” and others in the Democratic Party he says undermined his father before he dropped out of last year’s presidential campaign.
“Epstein introduced Melania to Trump. The connections are, like, so wide and deep,” Mr Biden said in one of the comments Ms Trump disputes.
Mr Biden attributed the claim to author Michael Wolff, whom Mr Trump disparaged in June as a “Third Rate Reporter”. He has accused Mr Wolff of making up stories to sell books.
The first lady’s threats echo a favoured strategy of her husband, who has aggressively used litigation to go after critics.
High bar
Public figures like the Trumps face a high bar to succeed in a defamation case.
The president and first lady have long said they were introduced by Paolo Zampolli, a modelling agent, at a New York Fashion Week party in 1998.
The letter is dated August 6 and was first reported on Wednesday by Fox News Digital.
Abbe Lowell, a lawyer who has represented Mr Biden in his criminal cases and to whom Brito’s letter is addressed, did not immediately respond to a request for comment.
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Yeah, you will never find a picture of her with Epstein when she was not married to trump…
Oh, wait….
She must have a cast iron pre nup and massive blinkers to stay with that monster.
The ‘public figure’ defense does not apply in the UK. So, the First Lady could sue Biden and win in a UK court in view of the fact the alleged defamation was reported on the UK news circuit. (Not, eg Brit newspapers because they are careful how they report.)