Melania Trump threatens $1bn lawsuit over Hunter Biden's 'salacious' Epstein comments
Trump takes issue with two comments made by the son of former President Joe Biden in an interview this month with American journalist Andrew Callaghan.
He alleged that Epstein introduced the first lady to her husband, 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.
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.
Asked in a subsequent interview on Callaghan's Channel 5 News YouTube channel if he would like to apologise, Biden bluntly responded: "F**k that. That's not going to happen."
The first lady's threats echo a favoured 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 modelling agent, at a New York Fashion Week party in 1998.The letter is dated August 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, has been contacted for comment.
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