Daily Beast apologizes and retracts article alleging a Melania Trump-Jeffrey Epstein link
The article, which detailed claims made by author Michael Wolff on a Daily Beast podcast, was replaced with an editor's note apologizing 'for any confusion' after the first lady's lawyers contacted the lefty outlet.
3 The article suggested that Melania met her husband through a modeling agent connected with Epstein and Trump.
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'After this story was published, The Beast received a letter from First Lady Melania Trump's attorney challenging the headline and framing of the article,' read the editor's note.
'After reviewing the matter, the Beast has taken down the article and apologizes for any confusion or misunderstanding,' it added.
The original headline, body text, image and URL on the article were all scrubbed from the Daily Beast's website.
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Wolff — who President Trump last month blasted as a 'Third Rate Reporter … laughed at even by the scoundrels of the Fake News' — charged in an interview with 'The Daily Beast Podcast' Saturday that Melania was 'very involved' in Trump's 'relationship' with Epstein.
'She's introduced by a model agent, both of whom Trump and Epstein are involved with. She's introduced to Trump that way,' Wolff alleged. 'Epstein knows her well.'
The 'Fire & Fury' author's reporting has drawn heavy skepticism from journalists in the past.
'Wolff is a shoddy, dishonest journalist and his book has to be read with suspicion,' left-wing journalist Jeet Heer wrote in The New Republic in 2018, arguing that 'Wolff clearly plays loose with the facts' in his book about Trump's first term in the White House.
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3 Melania's lawyers challenged the framing of the Daily Beast article.
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That same year, New York Times reporter Maggie Haberman told CNN that Wolff 'gets basic details wrong' in his book and 'creates a narrative that is notionally true, conceptually true' but with details that are 'often wrong.'
In her self-titled 2024 memoir, Melania explained that she met Trump at a September 1998 Fashion Week party at the Kit Kat Klub in New York City.
'I saw my friend wave at someone behind me. When I turned around, I noticed a man and an attractive blonde woman approaching us,' Melania wrote. ''Hi. I'm Donald Trump,' the man said when he reached my table.'
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Trump sat down next to his future wife and started a conversation, Melania recalled.
3 The story was retracted by the left-wing news outlet on Thursday.
Daily Beast
'From the moment our conversation began, I was captivated by his charm and easygoing nature,' she wrote, noting that their back-and-forth was a 'refreshing departure from the usual superficial small talk' and made her feel like 'the center of his world.'
'I found myself drawn to his magnetic energy.'
The president and his administration have faced pressure from his base to release more documents related to Epstein and the federal child sex trafficking case against the late financier, who was found dead in his Manhattan jail cell in 2019 as he awaited trial.
His death was ruled a suicide.
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