US First Lady Melania Trump has denied having any relationship with Jeffrey Epstein and said she is not one of his victims, putting the Epstein case back in the spotlight after her husband sought to put him behind him.
She dismissed online speculation that the disgraced financier and sex offender introduced her to Donald Trump, stating that she met her husband at a party in New York in 1998, two years before she first met Epstein at another event she attended with Trump.
She also called on Congress to hold public hearings for Epstein's victims to tell their stories under oath, opening the door to additional public attention on a topic the president wants to see disappear from focus, Reuters reports.
"The lies linking me to disgraced Jeffrey Epstein must stop today," Melania Trump said, reading a statement and declining to answer questions from reporters.
"I am not Epstein's victim," she said, responding to what she described as false slander against her.
Her unusual address, held under the presidential seal in the White House foyer, reopened the issue of the Epstein case, which has shaken Donald Trump's presidential term, while even some of his supporters believe that the administration mismanaged the release of documents from the state archives.
Last week, the president fired Attorney General Pam Bondi, who had drawn the ire of Trump loyalists for her slow release of millions of Epstein-related documents from the Justice Department.
Trump, a one-time friend of Epstein who said he cut ties with the financier in the early 2000s, is among many well-known figures - celebrities, politicians and intellectuals - whose names appear in government documents.
Melania Trump did not say why she decided to speak out on Thursday, reopening a topic that has largely disappeared from the headlines due to the US-Israeli war against Iran, Reuters reports.
However, Mark Beckman, her senior adviser, said in a statement to Reuters: "First Lady Melania Trump has spoken out now because enough is enough. The lies must stop."
A spokesman for the first lady said Trump's aides were aware of her plans for Thursday's statement.
"This took courage"
Although first ladies have occasionally addressed the nation on political issues, Melania Trump's statement was exceptional.
"A first lady in modern times has never publicly addressed a controversy in this way, and certainly never from the state floor of the White House, so this took courage," said Michael LaRosa, former spokesman for first lady Jill Biden.
"Melania is very deliberate and careful about how often she appears, and I think this event will resonate so strongly that she won't need to advertise this again," LaRoza added in the interview.
The first lady said she was never in a relationship with Epstein or his convicted associate Ghislaine Maxwell, with whom she says she only had occasional correspondence.
Melania Trump said she first "met" Epstein in 2000 at an event she attended with Donald Trump, five years before their marriage.
"At that time, I had never met Epstein before and had no knowledge of his criminal activities," she said.
Epstein, who pleaded guilty in 2008 to two counts of criminal conspiracy in Florida, including pimping a minor for prostitution, was facing federal charges in 2019 of trafficking minors for the purpose of sexual exploitation when he died in prison in what was officially ruled a suicide.
"I was never friends with Epstein," Melania Trump said. "Donald and I were occasionally invited to the same parties as Epstein, as overlapping social circles in New York and Palm Beach are common."
The first lady this year dodged a question about Maxwell's victims at an event with former Hamas hostages from Gaza.
The president has been trying to distance himself from the Epstein conversation for months.
"I think it's really time for the country to move on to something else, really, now that nothing has come out about me," Trump said in February.
Published documents
The Trump administration, under pressure from the president's political base, has ordered the US Department of Justice to release documents related to the criminal investigations against Epstein, in accordance with a transparency law passed by Congress.
Among the documents is an email that Melania Trump sent to Maxwell in 2002 regarding a New York Magazine article about Epstein.
"Nice story about JE in NY mag. You look great in the photo," the email reads. "Let me know when you get back to New York."
Melania Trump described her email to Maxwell on Thursday as just a "casual correspondence" and a "meaningless message."
A Reuters/Ipsos poll in January found that only 21 percent of respondents approved of Trump's handling of the Epstein documents.
A separate Reuters/Ipsos poll in February found that three-quarters of Americans - including two-thirds of Republicans - believe the federal government is hiding information about Epstein's alleged clients.
About a dozen Epstein survivors opposed Melania Trump's proposal for public hearings, saying in a statement that they have already done enough to make Epstein's crimes public through testimony and reports, and that it is up to the US Department of Justice to take further steps. They also called on the Trump administration to comply with the Epstein Transparency Act.
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