First lady Melania Trump on Thursday gave a jaw-dropping statement from the White House denying she ever had a relationship with Jeffrey Epstein.
“The lies linking me to the disgraceful Jeffrey Epstein need to end today,” the first lady declared. “I have never been friends with Epstein.”
However, in recordings obtained exclusively by the Daily Beast and published on the eve of the 2024 election, the convicted sex offender was heard bragging about his close friendship with the president and first lady.
Epstein even claimed that the first time Trump slept with his now wife was on his plane, dubbed the Lolita Express. In her statement, Melania said she had never been on his plane.
The pedophile spoke extensively with author Michael Wolff in August 2017 for his bestseller Fire and Fury, two years before he was found dead in his New York jail cell in 2019. Authorities say he died by suicide.
In the recordings, Epstein described himself to Wolff as Trump’s “closest friend for 10 years.”
Speaking on Thursday, Melania Trump denied she had ever been on the so-called Lolita Express.
“I have never had any knowledge of Epstein abuse of his victims. I was never involved in any capacity. I was not a participant, was never on Epstein’s plane and never visited his private island,” she said.
In her statement, the first lady also insisted her email to Epstein accomplice Ghislaine Maxwell, who is serving 20 years in prison for sex trafficking, were nothing more than casual correspondence.
“I never had a relationship with Epstein or his accomplice Maxwell. My email reply to Maxwell cannot be categorized as anything more than casual correspondence. My polite reply to her email doesn’t amount to anything more than a trivial note,” she said.
However, the email revealed in a batch of Epstein files released in January showed the first lady gushing to Maxwell in 2002. She claimed it was a reply, but the subject line “HI!” indicated she initiated the exchange. She also signed it “Love, Melania.”
In her own response, Maxwell’s subject line showed it was a reply. In it, she referred to then-Melania Knauss as “Sweet pea.”
Another email released in the Epstein files from a redacted sender to Epstein right after the 2016 election also mentioned Melania Trump’s first meeting with Trump, suggesting there was an Epstein link.
“I remember flying back with Donald on his plane the first weekend I went to visit you in Florida was the weekend he met Melania and he kept on coming out of the bedroom saying, ‘wow what a hot piece of a--,’” the unknown sender wrote.
However, in her statement on Thursday, the first lady denied that Epstein introduced her to Trump.
“Epstein did not introduce me to Donald Trump. I met my husband by chance at the New York City party in 1998,” she said.
The first lady claimed the first time she crossed paths with the pedophile was in 2000 at an event she attended with her now-husband.
She denied having any knowledge of Epstein’s criminal activities and said she was not a witness to any of his crimes.
