TROUBLE IN PARADISE?

Melania Trump Goes MIA From Davos as Stormy Scandal Brews

Melania has kept a reclusive public schedule since The Wall Street Journal published a report alleging her husband’s personal attorney paid $130,000 in hush money to Daniels.

In December, first lady Melania Trump told a group of infirm children that her Christmas wish would be to spend her holidays on a “deserted island.” One month later, Trump is one step closer to her dream.

Although the first family’s mansion on the Florida barrier island of Palm Beach, Mar-a-Lago, can hardly be described as deserted, the 110,000-square-foot “winter White House” does have one crucial vacancy: Melania’s husband, President Donald Trump. Although the first lady was originally scheduled to join the president at the annual meeting of the World Economic Forum in Davos, Switzerland, spokesperson Stephanie Grisham told CNN on Monday that Melania would stay behind due to “scheduling and logistical issues.” CNN reported on Thursday that the first lady’s plane had been spotted in West Palm Beach.

A request for details of the first lady’s apparently unscheduled trip to Florida was not immediately returned by a spokesperson for the East Wing.

Melania, the least-unpopular member of the first family, has kept a reclusive public schedule since Jan. 12, when The Wall Street Journal published a report alleging that in the closing days of the 2016 presidential campaign, President Trump’s personal attorney paid $130,000 in hush money to porn star Stormy Daniels. The payment was made “as part of an agreement that precluded her from publicly discussing an alleged sexual encounter with Mr. Trump,” the Journal reported.

At the time of the alleged payment, Daniels had been in protracted talks with The Daily Beast, among other outlets, to discuss the nature of her relationship with Trump. In a 2011 interview with In Touch released in the wake of the Journal’s story, Daniels went into exhaustive (and, occasionally, exhausting) detail regarding an “ongoing relationship” she had with Trump in 2006, months after Melania had given birth to their son, Barron.

“If I was his wife and I found out that my husband stuck his dick in a hundred girls, I would be less mad about that than the fact that he went to dinner and had like this ongoing relationship,” Daniels said in the interview.

President Trump and Daniels have both denied any impropriety, financial or personal, although the latter has capitalized on her newly elevated notoriety with a “Make America Horny Again” strip club tour.

The first lady has rarely been seen, in public or private, in the two weeks since the Journal story was published. The first couple’s 13th wedding anniversary came and went on Jan. 22 without public mention from either President Trump or Melania; the first anniversary of Trump’s inauguration was marked on Melania’s Instagram account with a post featuring the first lady linking arms not with her husband, but a Marine escort.

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Scott Bixby

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