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Melania Trump‘s legal battle with biographer Michael Wolff is escalating, as she’s now attempting to sanction him.
The First Lady’s fight against the renowned journalist and notorious Trump biographer is heating up, as reports have revealed that she was attempting to file sanctions against him. The news comes after a judge previously dismissed his lawsuit against her, which stemmed from her trying to shut down his claims that she had ties to the disgraced financier, Jeffrey Epstein. However, even the judge who dismissed Wolff’s lawsuit is stating that she’s not sure Melania’s latest move is in her “best interests.” Read more about the situation and lawsuit update below.
Melania Trump Files For Sanctions Against Michael Wolff Amid Epstein Claims
Though a large number of documents were released months ago, people from around the world continue to reel over the latest Epstein files evidence.
The release of the files, which could be read and accessed by the public, despite a large number of them being redacted, had many questioning not only some of today's most famous celebrities, but also the most notable political figures, wondering if they had any sort of relationship to the late criminal. One of those figures is First Lady Melania Trump, whom journalist and Trump family biographer, Michael Wolff, publicly claimed was linked to Epstein in his work.
Through these allegations, which the Slovenian native has been determined to deny, she entered a legal battle with the author, initially having her legal team threaten a $1 billion defamation lawsuit against him unless he retracted the statements and issued an apology in February. A month later, Wolff filed his own lawsuit under the anti-SLAPP law, which U.S. District Judge Mary Kay Vyskocil dismissed on May 29th.
Now, in a new release of court documents on July 21st, the first lady is asking a federal court to sanction the writer.
"Plaintiff and his counsel asserted a legally frivolous claim, propped it up with factual contentions that lacked any evidentiary support, and used them to run a political and commercial campaign," her motion read, as reported by Courthouse News Service.
Judge Issued A Warning To Melania & Michael As She Moves Forward With Her Motion
According to reports from earlier this month, the filing of the sanctions was something that the same judge who dismissed the Fire and Fury author's preemptive anti-SLAPP lawsuit two months ago issued a warning against.
During a hearing on July 8th, Judge Vyskocil reportedly warned the first lady's legal team that the sanctions she had been considering requesting carried "a very high standard." She also noted that Melania had already achieved a victory by having Wolff's lawsuit dismissed, and said, "sometimes enough is enough," as reported by The Daily Beast.
Still, the Melania documentary star and her team are continuing with their mission to request sanctions, with her legal team putting out a message to the author and his counsel in their motion.
"Plaintiff filed a patently meritless lawsuit and used it to harass Mrs. Trump in public," the first lady and her team claim. "The requested sanctions do not depend on a ruling that [the] plaintiff's statements were defamatory. They rest on the unsupported and mischaracterized federal submissions, the use of those papers for improper purposes, counsel's multiplication of the federal proceedings, and the court's findings that the action itself was abusively presented as textbook bad-faith forum-shopping."
