The Trump White House is trying desperately to contain the political fallout from the Epstein files, but no one is sprinting harder than the First Lady’s legal team.
While the West Wing deflects and distracts, the East Wing has decided that the only strategy is a scorched-earth legal offensive, one aimed at anyone who dares connect Melania Trump’s name to Jeffrey Epstein in any context whatsoever.
The catalyst for this latest storm arrived in August, when HarperCollins UK was forced into an embarrassing public apology to Melania over “unverified claims” printed in Andrew Lownie’s bestselling Prince Andrew biography, Entitled: The Rise and Fall of the House of York. The publisher confirmed it was rushing to edit portions of the book that alleged Epstein had introduced Melania to her future husband, Donald Trump — a claim Melania’s team insisted was false.
According to various reports, the publisher’s sudden rewrite was triggered after the First Lady reportedly threatened to sue Hunter Biden for repeating the same allegation. By then, the contested claim had already made its way into roughly 60,000 copies of the book that had already hit shelves.
But just when the Trump operation thought it had contained the damage, Lownie decided to pour gasoline on the situation. During a lecture at Cambridge University that reportedly took place in October, Lownie didn’t just repeat the disputed claim, he added to it dramatically.
He told the audience that Melania was not simply introduced to her husband by Epstein, but that she had actually been in a relationship with Epstein beforehand. The historian alleged that Melania was “sleeping with Epstein before she met Trump,” and then suggested that this detail had originally appeared in his book but was removed “after Trump complained.”
“I had various references in my book to Melania Trump—Epstein had actually been her lover before Trump, but Trump didn’t like that in the book so he ordered it to be taken out of the book after about 60,000 copies had been printed,” he said.
Lownie even mocked Trump’s supposed intervention, saying that removing the claim after tens of thousands of copies were already circulating “seemed to be a pretty pointless gesture, but I keep spreading the word.”
If the goal was to tamp down speculation, it achieved the exact opposite.
Melania has directed her attorneys to swiftly target any outlet or individual publishing what she calls “falsehoods” or “defamatory” claims about her and Epstein. The crackdown has already triggered multiple retractions and formal apologies in recent weeks.
Trump, has publicly backed his wife’s efforts, telling reporters that Melania was “very upset” by any Epstein-related rumors that “demean” her and are not quickly corrected.
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