First lady Melania Trump made a desperate move to protect herself in the lawsuit filed against her by Michael Wolff, the author has revealed.
Wolff revealed on Inside Trump’s head podcast that the president’s husband has hired a high-powered new legal team to defend her against his groundbreaking lawsuit — which could allow the author to question Melania about her and her husband’s relationship with Jeffrey Epstein.
Donald and Melania Trump (then Melania Knauss) with Jeffrey Epstein and Ghislaine Maxwell at Mar-a-Lago in 2000. / Davidoff Studios Photography / Getty Images
Wolff is suing the first lady under special New York state laws to protect reporters and free speech after she threatened to sue him for $1 billion. He raised an extraordinary total of more than $775,000 to fund his lawsuit, which he filed in court in New York City in October. The lawsuit, known as a SLAPP action — which stands for Strategic Process Against Public Participation — gives Wolff subpoena power once Melania receives it.
But Wolff revealed how he struggled to enforce the lawsuit against Trump. He said one firm serving lawsuits refused to work with his lawyers and a second was unable to file.
Now Trump has launched a new legal tactic, hiring a massive law firm and asking a federal judge to move the case into the federal court system — a move Wolff said was designed to cause further delays. To bring the federal case, she retained DLA Piper, the world’s third-largest law firm, and notably a partner at the firm who is a former Supreme Court clerk to Justice Neil Gorsuch.
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Michael Wolff has written four books about Trump and his administrations:
A new New York State Supreme Court filing still lists Melania’s original counsel — Alejandro Brito, of Coral Gables, Fla. — as part of her legal team, but says DLA partner Josh Halpern is now “counsel” on the case. Halpern worked for Gorsuch before joining DLA Piper.
Wolff said the move suggested concern in the Trump camp about the case.
“That’s what Trump always does,” Wolff told co-host Joanna Coles. “Hire a new firm, ask questions later.”
And writing on his Substack, HOWL, Wolff said the move showed it forced the first lady to “come out in the open.”
“The immediate cause of this change of law firms and the attempt to move to federal court may be that, after appearing to have given up our lawsuit (you are on notice!) at her logical points of contact — through her lawyer in Coral Gables and at her Trump Tower residence — we filed a Motion for Alternative Service earlier this week in court either to propose an acceptable method to her or to propose an acceptable method in court. for serving it,” he wrote.
Trump Tower on Fifth Avenue in Midtown Manhattan in February 2020. / Nicolas Economou/NurPhoto via Getty Images
Additional legal counsel could signal that the 55-year-old first lady is particularly concerned about the subpoena power she will hand to Wolff.
“He can’t let that happen,” Wolff told Coles. “So she’s going to be — I mean, her options are to run out the clock on that, which they’re definitely going to try to do. [use] every delaying tactic.”
Coles noted that, like the Epstein files, which continue to spill damning details about President Trump, Melania can’t run away from Wolff and his lawyers forever.
“Finally, the clock is running out,” she said.
Melania Trump, Prince Andrew, Gwendolyn Beck and Jeffrey Epstein at a party at Mar-a-Lago on February 12, 2000. / Davidoff Studios Photography / Getty Images
Wolff, who claims in her lawsuit that the first lady is trying to stifle the “legitimate investigation” into Epstein by threatening to sue him for $1 billion, suggested that one way out Trump could seek would be a settlement — but he has strict terms on that assumption.
“I guess at some point he might come and offer to fix it,” he theorized. “And what settlement would I take? I don’t know. I might, and if he said, [and] they won’t say it, but if they did say they would enter into covenants not to sue any media organization for libel again? Would I accept that?”
Donald and Melania Trump arrive for a New Year’s Eve party at Mar-a-Lago on December 31, 2025. / Joe Raedle/Getty Images
He continued, “Possibly, yes. But it would have to be something as definitive as this.”
A spokesman for Trump’s legal team said in a statement. “Michael Wolff is a serial liar whose malicious, defamatory and false statements have forced the Daily Beast to issue multiple retractions. By repeating these latest lies, the Daily Beast and its reporters are making it clear that they have not learned their lesson.”
The White House referred the Daily Beast to Trump’s legal team. Trump’s White House spokesman, Steven Cheung, repeatedly accused Wolff of being a “lying sack of s–t.”
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