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The United States Department of Justice filed a lawsuit Tuesday against a former Melania Trump adviser for her revealing book on the first lady of the United States.
The department said Stephanie Winston Wolkoff, who published the book “Melania and Me” last month, had pledged not to reveal information about President Donald Trump’s wife obtained from her position as a White House volunteer.
While Wolkoff, who worked unpaid for Melania during 2017-2018, was not a federal employee, the lawsuit says that she nevertheless signed a federally enforceable “contract” called a free services agreement.
In that agreement, he was “specifically prohibited from publishing, reproducing or otherwise disclosing such information to any unauthorized person or entity, in whole or in part.”
He was also prohibited from benefiting from what he learned at the White House, without the approval of White House attorneys, according to the lawsuit.
“Melania and I: The Rise and Fall of My Friendship with the First Lady,” intended to lift the veil on the 50-year-old former model of Slovenian origin who became the third wife of the real estate billionaire turned president.
It portrays a much more active and decisive Melania than is generally understood, depicting her as a bitter rival to Donald Trump’s daughter Ivanka, and labels her and her husband Jared Kushner as “snakes.”
Wolkoff fell out with the Trumps over a million-dollar scandal that was overlooked at the president’s January 2017 inauguration, which she helped organize.
Earlier this year, the Washington attorney general sued Trump’s inaugural committee and the president’s Trump Organization business, claiming that Trump profited greatly from the events.
Wolkoff’s communications and records are cited as evidence that he contributed to the lawsuit.
The suit says Wolkoff was not exempt from his obligation to send the book to Melania Trump and the White House attorneys after he stopped working there.
While the Justice Department warned Wolkoff and his publisher Simon & Schuster in July of the possible violation of their agreement, it took no action until after the book was published.
The lawsuit seeks to seize all of Wolkoff’s proceeds from the book.
pmh / dw
