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President Trump is desperately trying to move on from his ruinous war in Iran. But there was no way he expected to be moving on \u2014 or moving back \u2014 to the Epstein files.<\/p>\n
Thanks, Melania.<\/p>\n
The world gasped when the first lady emerged from the mists on Thursday to give a statement that ended up yanking America\u2019s eyeballs back to Jeffrey Epstein.<\/p>\n
\u201cBe Best,\u201d this was not.<\/p>\n
After firing the prevaricating Pam Bondi and threatening on Easter that the Iranians might soon be \u201cliving in Hell,\u201d the president surely thought he was finally wriggling away from the sordid, sticky pedophile scandal.<\/p>\n
For mysterious reasons, the Slovenian Sphinx stunned the West Wing, walking into the grand entrance hall of the White House to dump kerosene on the flickering Epstein fire.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n
In effect, Melania\u2019s dramatic message was:\u00a0Hey, guys, we\u2019re not done here yet. Everybody come look at what my husband so terribly doesn\u2019t want you to look at!<\/em><\/p>\n No one, not even Trump\u2019s inner circle, seemed to know that this bizarre monologue was coming or what was driving it.<\/p>\n Gobsmacked aides scrambled to answer reporters\u2019 questions about what the president knew and when he knew it.<\/p>\n When Jacqueline Alemany of MS NOW called Trump, he\u00a0told<\/a>\u00a0her he knew nothing in advance about the first lady\u2019s statement.<\/p>\n The next day, he\u00a0clarified<\/a> to The Times\u2019s Shawn McCreesh that, while he did not know that his wife was making the statement, he had known that she was upset by rumors that she was closer to Epstein than she had said, and wanted to clear the air.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n \u201cIt doesn\u2019t bother me,\u201d he said, contradicting those who sniggered that she threw him under the bus. She had \u201ca right to talk about it,\u201d he said.<\/p>\n But he mused: \u201cWould I have done it that way? Perhaps not, perhaps, I don\u2019t know.\u201d<\/p>\n For the first time, the first lady \u2014 who glided so serenely on skyscraper stilettos in her\u00a0infomercial<\/a>, \u201cMelania\u201d \u2014 looked shaken.<\/p>\n \u201cThe lies linking me with the disgraceful Jeffrey Epstein need to end today,\u201d she told reporters, adding: \u201cThe false smears about me from meanspirited and politically motivated individuals and entities looking to cause damage to my good name to gain financially and climb politically must stop.\u201d<\/p>\n The irony of Melania bitterly complaining about the sort of slimy tactics that fueled her husband\u2019s rise was not lost on listeners.<\/p>\n \u201cTo be clear,\u201d she said, \u201cI never had a relationship with Epstein or his accomplice, Maxwell.\u201d They had \u201coverlapping social circles\u201d in Palm Beach and Manhattan, which explained the photo of her partying with Donald, Epstein and Ghislaine Maxwell.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n Melania turned up in the Epstein files with a 2002 email to Maxwell, complimenting her on a picture that ran with a magazine piece about Epstein, asking how Palm Beach was, and telling Maxwell to call her when she was back in New York. She called Maxwell \u201cG\u201d and signed off, \u201cLove, Melania.\u201d Ghislaine wrote back, calling Melania \u201cSweet pea.\u201d<\/p>\n \u201cMy polite reply to her email doesn\u2019t amount to anything more than a trivial note,\u201d Melania said.<\/p>\n The first lady called on Congress \u201cto provide the women who have been victimized by Epstein with a public hearing specifically centered around the survivors\u201d so they could tell their stories.<\/p>\n Shouldn\u2019t the men doing the alleged crimes be the ones called to answer?<\/p>\n It was also astonishing that she felt compelled to clear up the little matter of how she and Donald met.<\/p>\n \u201cI am not Epstein\u2019s victim,\u201d she said. \u201cEpstein did not introduce me to Donald Trump. I met my husband, by chance, at a New York City party in 1998.\u201d<\/p>\n In her memoir, the first lady recounted that a friend took her to the Kit Kat Club in Manhattan, where she met the celebrity developer.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n She described how Trump flirted with her and asked for her number even though he was with a \u201cbeautiful\u201d blond date. She refused but said that she would take his instead.<\/p>\n \u201cI tucked the card into my clutch before his date returned to the table,\u201d she wrote.<\/p>\n That should have been an early warning for her about Donald the Duplicitous.<\/p>\n The party was hosted by Paolo Zampolli, a former Italian modeling agent who recruited the young Slovenian model to come to America and who takes credit for introducing Donald and Melania. Zampolli has now been elevated by the president to be a special envoy for global partnerships, whatever that means. The flashy Trump acolyte got a D.C. townhouse where he throws parties and shows off pictures of the Trumps.<\/p>\n Zampolli posted photos on X this week showing himself with Vice President JD Vance and Viktor Orban at a table in Hungary. He has offered to testify before Congress that he played Cupid for the pair.<\/p>\n\n\n\n\n\n\n