Melania Trump’s sudden push to stamp out “lies” about her relationship with Jeffrey Epstein may be an attempt at damage control, her niece says.
Psychologist and author Mary Trump told the Daily Beast Podcast that the first lady’s bombshell announcement on Thursday, in which she demanded that “lies” being spread about her in connection with convicted sex offender Jeffrey Epstein must end and called on Congress to allow open testimony from Epstein’s victims, theorized that she was “getting ahead of something.”
“She claims to have nothing, had nothing to do with Ghislaine Maxwell and Jeffrey Epstein,” Trump, 60, said about the first lady, adding that “There is so much documentary evidence to the contrary.”
Over the years, the first lady has been photographed with Epstein, a fact she acknowledged in her speech.
While she also said she did not have a relationship with Epstein or his associate, Ghislaine Maxwell, and only attended some parties with them “from time to time, since overlapping in social circles is common,” an email exchange between her and Maxwell, signed “Love, Melania,” has drawn attention in light of those remarks.
“To come in and say, I’m not a victim, I wasn’t a victim—well then, therefore, if we can show that you were connected to these people, at least you willingly entered into a relationship with two people we know were among the worst human beings on the planet,” Trump told the Daily Beast Podcast host Joanna Coles.
President Donald Trump’s niece added that she had “trouble figuring out” why the first lady would gain permission to speak on an issue her husband has described as a “Democrat hoax,” and from which he has sought to distance himself since the start of his second term.
“As bizarre as this statement was for so many reasons, chief among them the fact that it focused attention on the issue Donald [Trump] has been desperately trying to get us to stop paying attention to,” Trump said.
“It seems unfathomable that she didn’t have to get permission to do this,“ the Ph.D. author of Too Much and Never Enough said. “So why would Donald’s people think this was a good idea? Unless, of course, and this has been the joke going around, he’s trying to distract from Iran,” she added.
According to reports, officials at the Trump White House were caught off guard by the first lady’s Thursday statement.
“Weirdly, what she was saying is I don’t have any connection to a pedophile and sex trafficker, which is typically not something you expect the first lady of the United States to have to come out and say,” Trump’s niece emphasized, repeating that the first lady is “clearly getting ahead of something.”
The Daily Beast has reached out to the White House for comment.
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