Melania Trump Threatens People Magazine With Lawsuit

Melania Trump threatened People Magazine and a former staff reporter with legal action late Thursday over “false and completely fictionalized” statements in the writer’s account of Donald Trump forcing himself on her during a 2005 interview.

The Republican presidential candidate’s wife denied that she encountered or conversed with writer Natasha Stoynoff in New York, tweeting a letter from her lawyer demanding a “prominent retraction and apology” of certain statements in the article, and threatening that Melania would otherwise “consider her legal options.”

“The true facts are these: Mrs. Trump did not encounter Ms. Stoynoff on the street, nor have any conversation with her,” lawyer Charles Harder wrote. “The two are not friends and were never friends or even friendly.”

His law firm requested that People and Stoynoff confirm within 24 hours that the demands were being met, saying “failure to do so will require Mrs. Trump to consider her legal options.”

The letter did not dispute Stoynoff’s allegations that Donald Trump forcibly kissed her during an interview for an article to mark his wedding anniversary with his then-pregnant third wife Melania in 2005.

“I turned around, and within seconds he was pushing me against the wall and forcing his tongue down my throat,” Stoynoff wrote, an account the Republican White House hopeful vehemently denied.

“These vicious claims about me of inappropriate conduct with women are totally and absolutely false,” he told a rally in West Palm Beach Thursday.

At least six women have accused the New York mogul of making unwanted physical advances in accounts reported by The New York Times, NBC, People Magazine and others, most of them after he asserted during Sunday’s presidential debate with his democratic rival Hillary Clinton that he had never sexually assaulted a woman.

He said his lawyers were preparing a lawsuit against The New York Times — which published the accounts of two women who accused him of groping and kissing them — unless the paper retracts its article.

In her People story, Stoynoff said she asked to be taken off the “Trump beat,” but later ran into the real estate magnate’s wife in New York.

“That winter, I actually bumped into Melania on Fifth Avenue, in front of Trump Tower as she walked into the building, carrying baby Barron,” Stoynoff said. “‘Natasha, why don’t we see you anymore?’ (Melania Trump) asked, giving me a hug. I was quiet and smiled, telling her I’d missed her, and I squeezed little Barron’s foot.”

The potential first lady’s lawyer Charles Harder also represented former wrestler Hulk Hogan in his successful lawsuit against Gawker Media, which resulted in a $140 million jury award against the entertainment website for releasing a sex tape featuring Hogan and a friend’s wife

‘My Husband Is Telling The Truth, He’s A Great Leader’ – Melania Trump

Melania Trump, largely absent from the US presidential campaign, stumped for her husband Donald for the first time Monday and called him a great leader who treats everyone equal. Looking to bounce back after a rocky week, Trump called his better half to the rescue. The 45-year-old former model of Slovenian origin is chic and stylish, but until now her public presence alongside her Republican frontrunner husband has been fleeting, including brief appearances at election watch parties.

Her interviews have been limited. But in the US state of Wisconsin, where polls show Trump trailing his arch-conservative rival Ted Cruz in the primary that the state hosts Tuesday, Melania is accompanying her husband at several campaign events. Trump, whose apparent degrading of women and controversial remarks about Mexicans and Muslims have raised alarm bells in the Republican Party and more broadly across the American electorate, has confided that his wife has encouraged him to be “more presidential.” At a rally in Wisconsin, Mrs. Trump gushed praise of her husband, saying: “I’m very proud of him. He is a hard worker. He’s kind. He has a great heart. He’s tough. He’s smart.” She added: “He’s a great communicator. He’s a great negotiator. He’s telling the truth. He’s a great leader. He’s fair.”

“As you may know by now, when you attack him, he will punch back ten times harder,” she said. “No matter who you are, a man, or a woman, he treats everyone equal.” Melania unwittingly found herself in the eye of the storm last month in one of the low points of the campaign, when an anti-Trump political group unveiled a questionable ad on Facebook that used a photo of her lying naked and handcuffed to a briefcase. The photograph, taken aboard Trump’s custom-fitted private jet, was part of a shoot for the magazine GQ in 2000, before the couple married. The political poster, released just before votes in Arizona and Utah, featured the photo with the words: “Meet Melania Trump. Your next first lady. Or, you could support Ted Cruz on Tuesday.”

Trump accused Cruz, a senator from Texas, of being behind the provocation and responded by retweeting a photo montage showing an image of Melania next to an unflattering picture of Ted Cruz’s wife Heidi, along with the phrase: “The images are worth a thousand words.” On Monday night, speaking later to Sean Hannity on Fox News, Melania said, “I have a tough skin. I think it’s not fair that they’re attacking family, wife, or children”. – ‘100 percent’ behind husband – The few times that Melania has spoken out, she gushed over her husband, telling MSNBC in February that she was initially attracted by his “great energy,” charm and “amazing mind.”

The couple have a 10-year-old son, Barron. “I am a full-time mom, and I love it,” a smiling Melania proclaimed, adding that her maternal role was the reason she was not out campaigning more with Donald. “But I support my husband 100 percent,” she said. Melania has defended Trump’s more controversial statements. “I don’t feel he insulted the Mexicans,” she said of his explosive remark last June that Mexico was sending “rapists” and other criminals across the border as undocumented immigrants. “He said illegal immigrants,” she added. “He didn’t talk about everybody.” She also stressed that her husband had proposed only a “temporary” ban on Muslims entering the country.

“He wants to protect America… That’s very important to him,” she said, adding that he treats women the same way as men in the Trump organization. Born in what was then Yugoslavia to a fashion-industry mother and a car-salesman father, Melania has recounted studying design and architecture before leaving for Milan and Paris to launch her modelling career. She arrived in the United States in 1996 and met Trump two years later.

They married in January 2005 in Florida and her Dior dress was estimated at $200,000. Among the invited celebrities was Hillary Clinton, this year’s likely Democratic presidential nominee. – Lavish lifestyle – Melania Trump speaks at least five languages, including English, Italian, French and German. Her Twitter account — inactive since Trump declared his candidacy — reflects the privileged lifestyle of a jet-setter traveling between their lavish New York apartment and residences in in Florida. She has tweeted photographs from high-society gatherings and landmark sporting events, as well as recollections of her red-carpet saunters and charity functions. In each image Melania appears impeccably dressed.

Initially, she was not entirely on board with the idea of Trump launching a White House bid, with the candidate acknowledging recently that Melania would have been content as the wife of a billionaire businessman and reality TV star. “She said, ‘We have such a great life. Why do you want to do this?’” Trump told The Washington Post in an interview published Saturday. “I really have to do it,” Trump said he told her, adding that his wife eventually backed his bid and was confident of his victory

Source – www.vanguardngr.com