Transcription
Oh my. Melania Trump is rushing to federal court over an Epstein files claim. You will recall that author Michael Wolf sued Melania Trump, claiming that she was trying to threaten his First Amendment rights to discuss what he's alleged about Melania and Jeffrey Epstein, which she claims is false. She threatened to sue Wolfe for defamation. Wolf said, "Your threats constitute a violation of my First Amendment rights under a law in New York called the anti-SLAPP statute in New York."
Wolf has been trying to serve Melania with the lawsuit that he filed against her in New York state court, but Melania just rushed to federal court to remove the lawsuit filed by Wolf against her in New York state court to federal court because she alleges that she is a resident and citizen of Florida, and that because she's from Florida, and because Wolf is from New York, and because the amount in controversy in this lawsuit is over $75,000 that Wolf is seeking against Melania, Melania argues that his lawsuit needs to be heard in federal court.
Notably, for now, Melania has not countersued Michael Wolf for defamation, although she says in her removal request to federal court that what he said is false. All she is saying is that this case should not be heard in state court. It should be held in federal court and heard in federal court only. Let me pull up her federal court filing. Um, but first, let me share with you these photos right here. Melania Trump, Prince Andrew, Epstein associate Gwendelyn Beck, and Epstein at a party in Mar-a-Lago, Palm Beach in the early 2000s. Here's another photo right here. Donald Trump, Melania, Epstein, and Ghislaine Maxwell.
Now, clearly, um, there was some sort of relationship between Melania, Epstein, and Ghislaine in that they clearly knew each other, right? I mean, they seem to be very friendly in these photos. Now, what, uh, is being alleged by Michael Wolf is something more than that, and Melania is denying that. Um, but Wolf is saying, "You want to sue me for defamation because you think my accusations against you and talking about your relationship with Epstein is false? You think I'm lying? Then if you're going to sue me, sue me, but don't threaten and try to chill my First Amendment speech and demand an apology from me." Um, when he says what he's saying is protected by the First Amendment, and he claims what he says is true.
So, let's just take a look at Melania's filing. This is in New York federal court for the Southern District of New York. And it's notable, right, because the Southern District of New York is also where Ghislaine Maxwell was ultimately, uh, prosecuted and convicted. The Southern District of New York, or where charges were brought against Epstein. And the Southern District of New York has those 1.2 to 5 million additional records, um, regarding the Epstein files that the Justice Department just claimed that they identified. Remember though, we at the Midas Touch Network, um, were the first to break that story and say back in 2020, the Southern District of New York claims that it has, uh, 20 claims that it had 1.2 million records back then. So why is the DOJ only talking about a few hundred thousand records right now?
Let's take a look at Melania's filing. Notice of Removal. It's called, "Please take notice that pursuant to the removal statute, the First Lady of the United States, Melania Trump, as defendant, hereby removes the above-captioned action from the Supreme Court of the State of New York." That's their lower-level court. It's confusing. In New York, the Supreme Court is basically like their superior court. It's their trial court. And she wants to move it to the Southern District of New York, the federal court.
So again, just to remind you of the, uh, uh, the posture, the jurisdictional posture here. Michael Wolf sues Melania, alleging that his First Amendment rights to report on her have been violated because Melania was sending letters to him threatening to sue Wolf for defamation. And Wolf says what he was saying was protected speech. Melania said that if you don't retract your stories and issue an apology, she said that she was going to sue him for $1 billion. She gave him a deadline for a retraction and an apology. And Wolf said, "I have nothing to apologize for. I am reporting, including my opinion speech, including on facts, including, um, and you're mischaracterizing what these articles are saying." So he sued her under anti-SLAPP in state court. And now he claimed that she lived in New York at Trump Tower in New York, and that's why the case should be venued and have its jurisdiction in New York. Two people are both from New York, and so it should be in a state court, not federal court.
If you have a resident of different states, um, that's called diversity of citizenship, and there's something called diversity of jurisdiction. If someone's from New York and Florida, or say New York and California, or New York or or any other state, and the amount in dispute is above $75,000, that case can be removed, uh, at the election of the defendant to federal court. So that's what she's doing right here.
So here's what she says. She goes, "Plaintiff Michael Wolf filed a frivolous complaint in this action in the Supreme Court of the State of New York on October 21st, 2025." Pause there, Melania. If you think it's frivolous, why didn't you sue him? If you think that he's defaming you, why on October 21st, 2025, when you threatened that you would sue him in Florida, why didn't you sue him for defamation? Are you worried about discovery? Are you afraid that he's going to take your deposition? Were you just bluffing? Why threaten to sue someone for a billion dollars and not follow through with it? It looks weak. It looks pathetic. It looks like you've got something to hide. And then he ended up suing you.
And it says, "A true and correct copy of that summons and complaint is attached here. Mrs. Trump reserves all of her defenses and all other rights with respect to the claims asserted in the complaint and all of her rights generally, um, in discussing blah blah blah blah." Then it goes on to say, "As of the date of this notice of removal, Miss Trump has not been validly served with a summons of a copy of the complaint. As plaintiff concedes, there are no other pleadings or orders filed in New York court in this action. Plaintiff's false allegations in the complaint are incorporated here and by reference."
So, she admits that she had not been, uh, served, and Michael Wolf has been stating that she's been avoiding service. Wolf said that he tried to serve her at Mar-a-Lago. He tried to serve her at Trump Tower. He tried to serve her in Washington D.C., but she was running from him, is what he claimed, that she was avoiding service of process since he filed the lawsuit back in October. And I guess, you know, she didn't want to be served by a process server, so she just said, "I'm going to enter an appearance in federal court to try to keep this case in federal court as opposed to state court."
Um, paragraph three, "Plaintiff alleges that he's an experienced journalist and a resident of of New York." Then she goes on to say in paragraph four, "The complaint falsely alleges on information and belief that while Mrs. Trump spends some time in Washington D.C. and has ties to Florida, Mrs. Trump currently is a citizen of New York State. As explained below, Mrs. Trump is not currently a citizen of New York, nor was she a New York citizen at the time the complaint was filed on October 21st, 2025. Mrs. Trump has been a Florida domiciliary and thus a Florida citizen at all times relevant to this action."
"The complaint asserts two false claims for declaratory relief arising out of a letter sent by Mrs. Trump's counsel to plaintiff on October 15th, 2025, in which Mrs. Trump's counsel demanded that plaintiff retract and apologize for his numerous false, defamatory, disparaging, misleading, and inflammatory statements about Mrs. Trump made in an article published by the Daily Beast. In those statements, plaintiff falsely and maliciously asserts that Mrs. Trump was somehow involved in the scandal relating to Jeffrey Epstein. Given the obviously defamatory nature of those statements under applicable law, Mrs. Trump's counsel demanded that plaintiff immediately issue a full and fair retraction of the statement, immediately issue an apology for the statements, and immediately make a monetary proposal to Mrs. Trump to ameliorate the harm that you have caused. Mrs. Trump reserved the right to initiate legal action for over $1 billion in damages if plaintiff refused to promptly comply with the foregoing demands. Plaintiff refused to retract and apologize and instead initiated this action in an improper effort to preempt a potential defamation lawsuit against him by Mrs. Trump."
Just pause there. He didn't do it, in my opinion. He didn't do it to preempt. He just did it because you threatened to sue him. And he said, "Okay, if you're threatening to sue me, I have a First Amendment right to be speaking this way." And also, you never filed a lawsuit against him. So, why not file the, I mean, if you think he's defamed you, why not bring the lawsuit? He's going to take discovery. He's going to go through your emails. He's going to take your deposition. The billion-dollar number is ridiculous. But why don't you bring, if if you think that there's an actionable case, why didn't you bring that case? Why don't you bring the case against Hunter Biden when you threatened to sue Hunter Biden and gave him a deadline and said you were going to sue him for a billion dollars? And then how do you explain those photos right there? So, how do you explain how do you explain that? And you clearly must have known at some time. I'm giving, again, I'm giving you my First Amendment speech, protected by the First Amendment. Like, you married Donald, and you didn't know that he had a friendship with Jeffrey Epstein at the time? Like, you didn't know about that? Did you didn't know Epstein was going to Mar-a-Lago while he's photographed with you in Mar-a-Lago in those photos that I just showed?
Okay. Then she just goes on to say that her, she goes on to say that, um, this is what it says. "With respect to the state of citizenship of Mrs. Trump, the complaint acknowledges that Trump spends some time in D.C. and has ties to Florida, but nevertheless makes the conclusory, unsupported, and false assertion that she is a citizen of New York State. Under settled Second Circuit precedent, the following facts show that Mrs. Trump is domiciled in and is therefore a citizen of the state of Florida." Domiciled means like where your legal residence is. So if she is indeed a resident of Florida and Wolf is a resident of New York, it should go to federal court.
I want to be clear, but Wolf is alleging she lives in New York at Trump Tower in New York, and she's alleging she lives at Mar-a-Lago is the address that she gives. Because if you look at the, um, filing page, she lists Mar-a-Lago's address as her home address. She lists the Mar-a-Lago Club as her personal residence versus a personal residence in Trump Tower. Okay.
But here's what she says about, uh, the facts that she claims shows that she's domiciled in Florida. "Since October 30th, 2019, Mrs. Trump has designated her primary residence as Mar-a-Lago, which is located at 1100 South Ocean Boulevard, Palm Beach. Since October 30th, 2019, Mrs. Trump has been registered to vote in the state of Florida and cast her votes in federal elections in 2020, 2022, and 2024. Since September 2021, Mrs. Trump has maintained a valid driver's license issued by the state of Florida. When not in Washington D.C. carrying out her official duties as First Lady, Mrs. Trump spends the majority of her time at her primary residence in Palm Beach, Florida. Based on these established and indisputable facts, Mrs. Trump is a citizen of Florida."
Now, pause there. If indeed she does spend the majority of time in Florida, let's say she spends more than six months in Florida, in my opinion, that would make her a Florida resident. But it's not undisputed. Michael Wolf is disputing it. He claims you live in Trump Tower in New York as your primary residence. When you're not in D.C., you're not in Mar-a-Lago, he alleges. He alleges that maybe you're at Mar-a-Lago for New Year's and Christmas and events like that. And you go there, but he's saying you're mostly Washington D.C. and you're mostly New York.
So, what do I think Michael Wolf is going to do here? This is what I would do if I was in a situation like this. I would conduct what's called jurisdictional discovery. Request from the federal judge that you take limited discovery on the issue of domicile, where somebody resides. You'll do some requests, document requests, maybe requests for admissions, and then you take Melania's deposition, limited to two hours, maybe 90 minutes, on the limited issue of where you reside and what your domicile is. And then you would ask the questions to her under oath. Where were you last week? Where were you the week before that? Since Donald Trump has come into office, how many days have you spent in Mar-a-Lago? Produce your flight records. How do you get to Mar-a-Lago? Do you take the jet? Produce the flight manifest showing that you've been traveling to Florida. You request that type of stuff specifically. And then you'll make the argument, oh, she actually lives in New York. She actually lives in D.C., or she's a resident of Florida.
Now, if she's a resident of Florida, the case will stay in federal court, and then it will get litigated, right? Then she'll file a motion to dismiss and claim that there's no claim against her. Michael Wolf will argue that he has a cause of action against her, and then the case gets fought. But what I find interesting here too, though, is that her action was to remove it to federal court, and she hasn't sued him. She hasn't sued him in Florida. She hasn't filed a countersuit. But what she wants to do is remove it to federal court, and then she'll probably seek a motion to dismiss.
Now, there's been a lot of other issues with Melania recently as well that we should be reporting on. The Daily News talks about how models who have been at Mar-a-Lago taking photos of Barron have been threatened allegedly by Melania with harsh punishment after snapping covert photos of Barron during Christmas at Mar-a-Lago. And you see photos of Barron here on Christmas at Mar-a-Lago. Insiders told a gossip columnist Rob Shuter, who wrote on Substack, that these models who were taking the photos were basically, uh, told by Melania and other people in Mar-a-Lago, if you ever take photos of Barron, that could result in you getting kicked out of Mar-a-Lago as a member and banned from Mar-a-Lago.
It's also notable as well, and I think this would be interesting, uh, to explore. You know how close Melania is with Barron. Now, Barron lives in Washington D.C. Barron was living in New York where he went to NYU, but apparently he either didn't like living in New York or whatever the reason was, he wanted to move back to D.C., but I think he wanted to be with his family there. He's taking NYU courses in Washington D.C. But is Melania there with him in D.C.? Was she living with him during the first semester? I mean, lots of people believe they were living together at Trump Tower. He would be there and she, they'd be living together. So, those are all questions that will be asked, I think, at a jurisdictional discovery deposition involving, uh, Melania.
There were also photos, though, of Barron taken recently at the New Year's, uh, event. Here's Barron with, uh, Donald Trump and Melania, um, at New Year's. Here, play this clip right here. Now, here is what Michael Wolf said, what is it, last week, when he was, uh, talking about how Melania was avoiding service in connection with the lawsuit he filed against her. Here's what Michael Wolf said. Play this clip.
"This is an update about my lawsuit against the First Lady of the United States. I think she's running from us. By suing her, we have the right to subpoena her and her husband and their friends and to ask all concerned about their relationship with Jeffrey Epstein. We have tried to serve her lawyer in Florida. Uh, he has absolutely refused to take service, um, of our lawsuit. We've sent a process server to Trump Tower where we understand she lives, not in the White House, but in Trump Tower. And that process server, who seemed perfectly familiar with, uh, with serving, uh, people in Trump Tower, a lot of dubious people there. When the server found out that it was the First Lady, they panicked. They refused to do it. We got another server to go, and this was just yesterday. Uh, they arrived at Trump Tower. They were prevented from getting in by security. Security told them that they would, that they would, uh, take any papers and throw them in the garbage. But they did confirm that Melania Trump lives in Trump Tower. So this is a kind of historical point. The First Lady of the United States does not live in the White House. She lives in Trump Tower. We will now go into court as early as tomorrow."
And a reminder, when Melania was asked about Donald Trump's statement where Donald Trump said that he grabs women non-consensually by their vaginas, and because Trump says he's wealthy, and when you're wealthy, you get away with it, you can grab women by their vaginas. He used different language. Um, he called it locker room talk. And remember, she was asked what she thought about it, and she said, uh, that she believed it was locker room talk as well. Here, play this clip.
>> He described it as, as locker room talk.
>> Mhm.
>> To you. I mean, you sort of alluded to that as well. Is that what it is to you? Just locker room talk.
>> Yeah. It's, it's kind of a two teenage boys, actually. They should behave better. Right.
>> He was 59.
>> Correct. Uh, and sometimes I said, I have two boys at home. I have my young son and I have my husband. So, but, uh, I, I know how some men talk. And, uh, that's, that's how I saw it. Yes.
>> Well, there you have it, folks. Um, we'll keep you posted.
A reminder, Melania denies and says what Wolf says is false. She alleges what Wolf says is defamatory. Wolf alleges that he has a First Amendment right to say it. And that's the, you know, and that's the dispute. He alleges that his reporting is accurate, and he says that she's mischaracterizing even the way he's reported on things. And so that's the status of it. We'll keep you posted every step of the way on this case. But interesting, Melania is now in federal court over this stuff. Hit subscribe. Let's get to 6 million. And thanks for watching. Love this video. Support independent media and unlock exclusive content. Ad-free videos and custom emojis by becoming a paid member of our YouTube channel today. You can also gift memberships to others. Let's keep growing together.