Washington (Somalia Today) – US First Lady Melania Trump made an extraordinary public statement at the White House on Thursday, firmly denying any ties to the late disgraced financier and convicted sex offender Jeffrey Epstein.
Calling the allegations “smears about me”, she demanded an end to rumours linking her to the sprawling sex-trafficking scandal.
“The stories are completely false,” Trump said during her unexpected appearance.
She added that she and her legal team were actively fighting what she called “unfounded and baseless lies” about her alleged links to Epstein.
Epstein notoriously used his ties to the rich, powerful and famous to recruit underage victims and conceal decades of sexual abuse.
“The lies linking me with the disgraceful Jeffrey Epstein need to end today,” the first lady said.
“The individuals lying about me are devoid of ethical standards, humility and respect. I do not object to their ignorance, but rather I reject their mean-spirited attempts to defame my reputation.”
White House denial
The seemingly out-of-the-blue statement caught Washington off guard.
It came just as President Donald Trump and his administration appeared to have moved beyond the lingering controversy surrounding Epstein.
The escalating war with Iran has recently consumed the White House and dominated the president’s national security agenda and public messaging.
But the first lady’s forceful remarks now seem certain to push the scandal back to the centre of the political spotlight, directly undercutting her husband’s recent calls for the media to move on.
The official White House account on X reshared a video of the first lady’s appearance, notably without adding any comment.
In a surprise move, Melania Trump also called on Congress to hold a public hearing focused entirely on survivors of Epstein’s crimes.
She said victims should have the chance to testify before lawmakers and place their harrowing accounts on the congressional record.
“Each and every woman should have her day to tell her story in public if she wishes,” she said. “Then, and only then, we will have the truth.”
Congressional pressure
Democratic lawmakers quickly seized on the first lady’s demand.
Representative Robert Garcia, the top Democrat on the House Oversight Committee, which is investigating the Epstein network, voiced his full support in a social media post.
Garcia publicly called on Representative James Comer, the Republican chairman of the committee, to schedule a public hearing “immediately”.
It remains unclear what prompted the first lady’s sudden decision to speak out now.
Her call for congressional action came after federal authorities released millions of pages of documents under the newly enacted Epstein Files Transparency Act.
Congress passed the legislation after months of intense public pressure, requiring the US government to open its files on Epstein and his confidante, Ghislaine Maxwell.
Epstein died by suicide in a Manhattan jail cell in 2019 while awaiting trial on federal sex-trafficking charges.
Maxwell is currently serving a 20-year federal prison sentence after her 2021 conviction for child sex trafficking and recruiting underage girls.
Lawmakers complained bitterly last month when the Justice Department released only a limited initial batch of records.
Federal officials defended the delay, saying they needed more time to review newly discovered documents and remove sensitive information that could identify underage victims.
Casual correspondence
During her statement, Melania Trump explicitly denied being friends with either Epstein or Maxwell.
She acknowledged moving in overlapping elite social circles in New York and Florida, but dismissed a recently uncovered email reply to Maxwell as “casual correspondence”.
“My polite reply to her email doesn’t amount to anything more than a trifle,” she said, without elaborating further.
The heavily redacted documents the Justice Department released included a brief 2002 email beginning with “Dear G!” and ending with “Love, Melania.”
The email praised the recipient for a magazine article about “JE”.
“I know you are very busy flying all over the world,” the email read. “How was Palm Beach? I cannot wait to go down. Give me a call when you are back in NY.”
The correspondence came in the same month that New York Magazine published a profile of Epstein.
In that 2002 article, Donald Trump described the financier as a “terrific guy” who liked beautiful women “on the younger side”.
Donald Trump later distanced himself from Epstein, saying they had a bitter falling-out and that he had permanently banned the financier from his Mar-a-Lago estate in Florida.
The recent federal document release also included an image from Epstein’s home showing a series of framed photographs lined up on a credenza and tucked inside drawers.
One photograph clearly visible inside a drawer showed Donald Trump posing alongside Epstein, Melania Trump and Maxwell.
Many believe the image came from a well-documented party at the Mar-a-Lago club in 2000.
In her closing remarks, the first lady mentioned her husband several times and sought to correct the record surrounding their relationship.
She firmly rejected long-running rumours that Epstein had introduced her to Trump, saying she met her future husband independently at a New York City Fashion Week party in 1998.
