Trump Denies Knowing About Melania’s Epstein Presser Beforehand — Amid CNN Report That He Got a Heads-Up

(AP Photo/Jacquelyn Martin)

First Lady Melania Trump took people by surprise Thursday when she gave a five-minute public statement about her connection to convicted pedophile Jeffrey Epstein.

During the statement, Melania denied having a relationship with Epstein or his cohort Ghislaine Maxwell.

“I reject their mean-spirited attempts to ruin my reputation,” Melania Trump said of those spreading what she called rumors and mistruths about the nature of her relationships.

It wasn’t clear Thursday what precipitated Melania’s statement or even if President Donald Trump knew it was coming ahead of time.

CNN’s Betsy Klein reported that the president did get an advance warning about his wife’s statement, saying that it added “momentum to an issue that they have sought to tamp down.”

At the same time, MS NOW correspondent Jacqueline Alemany wrote, “Just got off a quick call w President Trump who said he didn’t ‘know anything about’ FLOTUS’ statement prior to her on camera appearance, but that he was in a meeting about the war & couldn’t speak further. ‘She didn’t know him,’ he added before hanging up, referring to Epstein.”

Pundits questioned why the first lady chose Thursday to make her statement about the investigation her husband has called a “Democrat hoax.”

Fox News’s Jacqui Heinrich pondered whether Melania was trying to get ahead of a new story.

“We’ve been trying to understand why she made it today, if there was something that she is reacting to that might already be in the news that has upset her, or if there’s a story that’s yet to come out, that’s about to drop, and she wanted to get ahead of, because it did feel like it came out of left field for us,” Heinrich said.

“We’re trying to figure that out but she was very clear she wants to clear her name basically about these ‘lies’ that are linking her to Epstein,” Heinrich continued. “She said that she met her husband by chance at a party. And it was interesting to me that she was addressing this controversy. It’s just not something that she usually does.”

Heinrich noted that the only recent news surrounding the Epstein saga was that Pam Bondi would not be testifying before Congress because she is no longer the attorney general.

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