You Can’t Sue the Internet: Melania Trump, Epstein, and the Receipts

By Ellie Leonard, Blue Amp Media Contribution Editor

In August, First Lady Melania Trump, and Hunter Biden, son of former President Joe Biden, had somewhat of a tiff over comments made by the younger Biden claiming it was Jeffrey Epstein who introduced Melania to Donald Trump in the late ‘90s. She said it was actually Paolo Zampolli, a New York businessman deeply entrenched in the modeling world, who introduced her to her future husband. Wikipedia agrees with Melania. However, Jeffrey Epstein does not. According to the New York Times, Epstein often bragged that it was he who introduced Donald Trump to his third wife, also claiming that the pair had had sex for the first time on Epstein’s airplane. Wanting to distance herself from the Epstein scandal for obvious reasons, the First Lady threatened Hunter with a billion-dollar lawsuit if he didn’t retract his recycled statements.

“Fuck that. That’s not going to happen.” - Hunter Biden

So I guess that’s a no.

And while it seems less shocking to the rest of us that Melania would have any connection to Jeffrey Epstein, the guy her husband called “terrific” and claimed to be friends with for 15 years, it appears the White House PR machine is trying to wave a neuralyzer in front of our eyes (that’s a Men In Black reference, kids) in hopes we’ll turn away from the Epstein files and say, “I REALLY DON’T CARE. DO U?”

But there’s this thing called public record, Melania, and the press, and thankfully for all of us armchair sleuths, the internet. And so today I’m going to be pulling from the giant knot of internet information to see how the First Lady is or isn’t connected to Jeffrey Epstein, despite what might seem obvious.

Melania Knauss (nee Knavs) Trump was born April 26, 1970 in Novo Mesto, in the Lower Carniola region of Slovenia, which was then part of the Socialist Federal Republic of Yugoslavia. Her father sold car parts and her mother worked as a patternmaker at a children’s clothing manufacturer. They lived in state-run housing with Melania’s older sister, Ines, and despite how it sounds were actually quite well-off compared to most. Melania was often excused from school to participate in fashion shows at her mother’s work, and by the age of 15 was taking the train over an hour to Ljubljana to attend the Secondary School for Design and Photography. She’d move into her own apartment a year later, and though she attended the University of Ljubljana she never obtained a degree.

Melania changed her last name to “Knauss” in order to better pursue a modeling career, and traveled across Europe to find work, eventually settling down in Paris where she lived with her roommate, future Playboy Playmate Victoria Silvstedt. In 1995 Melania met the aforementioned Paolo Zampolli, co-owner of Metropolitan Models and close friend of Donald Trump. He encouraged her to move to the U.S., and after securing her a tourist visa, introduced her to places like the Kit Kat Club in New York City. Zampolli was also very closely connected with the Clintons, and claimed “Mr. Clinton” never came to parties. And while connections between Zampolli and Epstein are hazy, at least on the record, he did interact with Ghislaine Maxwell via Sustainable Oceans Alliance, which brought Maxwell to the United Nations to discuss her oceans advocacy.

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Melania’s visa didn’t allow her to work, yet she accepted $20,000 worth of modeling jobs ($42,187 today) before securing an H-1B visa (which allows employers to temporarily hire foreign workers in specialty occupations) before receiving her first major contract at Camel Cigarettes, which was displayed in Times Square and in Rolling Stone Magazine.

Whether or not Jeffrey Epstein introduced Melania Knauss to Donald Trump, we may never know, but legend has it they met at the Kit Kat Club in 1998. Donald had brought another date, Celina Midelfart, and asked for Melania’s phone number, who refused. Midelfart had been introduced to Jeffrey Epstein around 1995, when she was only 22 years-old, attending a reception to honor singer Tony Bennett. Evidence in the 2021 Ghislaine Maxwell trial would suggest Midelfart and Epstein were a couple, though secretive, and he would send flowers to the young woman while still dating Ghislaine Maxwell.

“I felt they were a couple.” - Cimberly Espinosa, Ghislaine Maxwell’s assistant 1996-2002

Donald Trump would be dating the young woman two years later when he was introduced to his future wife (while also still married to his second wife, Marla Maples).

There are some suggestions that Melania began dating Donald Trump because he bore a resemblance to her father, both in appearance and personality. But she’d also apparently read Trump’s book, Trump: The Art of the Comeback, which detailed what he wanted from the women he dated. They would be very on-again-off-again, as Donald struggled keeping his eyes on the road when it came to dating one woman at a time. But eventually they stuck with it, and he hired her as one of the first models at his new agency, Trump Model Management. He soon had her posing in the highly-coveted Sports Illustrated Swimsuit Issue, doing nude photoshoots for British GQ in his Boeing 727, and even got her a sexy bikini shoot on the floor of a mockup Oval Office.

They’d break up one more time, when Trump became too focused on his first bid for the American Presidency in 2000, representing the Reform Party. Trump would later withdraw from the race, citing the party’s appeal to former KKK Grand Wizard, David Duke. Sixteen years later, David Duke would be a big supporter of Donald Trump’s presidency, and someone Trump was hesitant to denounce in his second bid for the White House.

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After the first failed campaign, Donald got back together with Melania, and she was suddenly granted a EB-1, also known as an “Einstein Visa,” typically reserved for Pulitzer prize winners and Olympic athletes, as well as academic researchers. Melania was still working as a model. And while her immigration application has never been made public, it’s suggested that it may have been “boosted by high-profile testimonial letters.”

“It’s about getting testimonials from someone who is extraordinary in their own right and has some name recognition...and I’m sure she probably had some pretty significant letters, maybe from Donald Trump.” - Nita Upadhye, U.S. immigration specialist, for the BBC

Four years later, prenup in hand, Donald and Melania were married in Palm Beach. Their son Barron would be born a year later.

Now, let’s talk Epstein. Melania has been very coy about her relationship with her husband and any connections he had to the level-three sex-offending financier. Prior to their marriage she was seen partying with her then boyfriend and Epstein, with his on-again-off-again girlfriend, Ghislaine Maxwell, at Mar-a-Lago. But outside of that one picture we have very little to go on in order to connect Melania Trump to Jeffrey Epstein. However, there is one source who has proven, time and time again, to have his finger on the pulse when it comes to all things Epstein. And that is Michael Wolff, a man that Epstein begged to write his biography. Wolff declined, sort of. But after 100 hours of interviews over 5 years, Epstein would be indicted, and Wolff would write several books of his own, including Fire and Fury: Inside the Trump White House, which became a #1 New York Times bestseller. But he hung onto those interviews and has released little samplings of his memories over time, including what he remembered of Melania’s relationship with Epstein.

“You know, she was very involved in this Epstein relationship. I mean, there is this model thing, but, you know, and Epstein talks about - you know, and she’s introduced by a model agent (Zampolli), both of whom Trump and Epstein are involved with. She’s introduced to Trump that way. Epstein knows her. Epstein says the first time Donald Trump and Melania have sex is on his airplane. So this is a, you know, another complicated dimension in this. Where does she fit into the Epstein story? Where does she fit into this whole culture of models of indeterminate age?” - Michael Wolff for the Daily Beast

The Daily Beast would later retract this story after a call from Melania’s attorney.

Were they as close as Donald Trump and Epstein? Unlikely. But was she in his orbit for many years? Definitely. She flew on his Boeing 727, known as the Lolita Express, a number of times. But as most of the passengers have been left off the latter portion of the flight logs, we don’t know if she ever went to Little Saint James (”Epstein’s Island”). As she moved from fling, to girlfriend, to wife, to the inevitable spurned lover of Donald Trump, her affection for Epstein, if any, would likely have waned with the onset of motherhood and priorities at home. But she knew her husband’s friends. And she knew Jeffrey Epstein’s friends. And much of the interaction between the two men took place in the 1.5-mile stretch between their private mansions in Palm Beach.

She attended fashion shows with Trump and Epstein. She attended parties with Trump and Epstein. She traveled with Trump and Epstein. And she was by her boyfriend, and then husband’s side for at least six years of his “close” relationship with his pal, Epstein, both in New York City and Palm Beach, and anywhere else they wished to go.

But Melania, like Les Wexner, and like Steve Bannon, has never been subpoenaed in the investigation of Jeffrey Epstein. Yet one more person who had boots on the ground in the biggest political and criminal scandal in recent presidential history. And still, they don’t want to know.