Melania Trump threatens Hunter Biden with $1bn lawsuit over Epstein claim
he first lady objects to two statements Mr Biden, son of President Joe Biden, made in a recent interview with British journalist Andrew Callaghan.
He alleged that Epstein introduced the first lady to now-President Donald Trump.
The statements are false, defamatory and "extremely salacious," Melania Trump's lawyer, Alejandro Brito, wrote in a letter to Biden.
Biden's remarks were widely disseminated on social media and reported by media outlets around the world, causing the first lady "to suffer overwhelming financial and reputational harm," he wrote.
A letter from the first lady's lawyers demanded he retract the claim and apologise, or face legal action for "over $1bn in damages".
It also accuses Biden of having a "vast history of trading on the names of others", and repeating the claim "to draw attention to yourself".
Biden made the Epstein comments during a sprawling interview in which he lashed out at "elites" and others in the Democratic Party he says undermined his father before he dropped out of last year's presidential campaign.
"Epstein introduced Melania to Trump. The connections are, like, so wide and deep," Biden said in one of the comments Trump disputes. Biden attributed the claim to author Michael Wolff, whom Trump disparaged in June as a "Third Rate Reporter." He has accused Wolff of making up stories to sell books.
The first lady's threats echo a favored strategy of her husband, who has aggressively used litigation to go after critics. Public figures like the Trumps face a high bar to succeed in a defamation lawsuit.
The president and first lady have long said they were introduced by Paolo Zampolli, a modeling agent, at a New York Fashion Week party in 1998.
The letter is dated Aug. 6 and was first reported Wednesday by Fox News Digital.
Abbe Lowell, a lawyer who has represented Biden in his criminal cases and to whom Brito's letter is addressed, did not immediately respond to a request for comment late Wednesday.
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And the solution, he says, requires more than just City Hall.
