Melania Trump’s Epstein statement stunned White House aides but was in keeping with a first lady who does her own thing

By Adam Cancryn, Kristen Holmes, CNN

(CNN) — With war raging in the Middle East and midterms on the horizon, the White House seemed to have finally shaken the Jeffrey Epstein saga that plagued the first year of Donald Trump’s second term.

Inside the White House, officials had started to move on.

But for first lady Melania Trump, the Epstein story was still all consuming.

Trump’s extraordinary remarks on Thursday distancing herself from the late sex offender were driven by her monthslong fixation on press coverage and internet speculation about her ties to Epstein, two people familiar with the matter told CNN.

The first lady’s dismay over the issue prompted her seemingly abrupt decision to publicly address it — despite little apparent need to do so and with minimal advance notice given even to her husband.

“There were stories about her that were being amplified by random blogs — and they were still hitting her over Epstein, because that is what they do,” one of the people familiar with the matter said. “She wanted to go on the record and deny it.”

The White House announced on Wednesday morning that Trump would be making a statement, without specifying the topic. Standing in the Cross Hall a little more than 24 hours later, the first lady stunned senior White House aides.

Even her husband said in a brief phone interview later that day that he didn’t know about it ahead of time. On Friday, he told The New York Times that he knew the first lady had wanted to speak about Epstein at some point but confirmed he did not know what she planned to say.

The president declined to tune into her remarks in real time, a senior White House official said.

But those remarks immediately reverberated across the Republican Party. They upended a news cycle dominated by highly anticipated efforts to negotiate a Middle East peace and dragged a saga her husband had been desperate to escape right back to the fore.

Among those who know her best, it fit a yearslong pattern of Melania Trump finding and focusing on negative coverage of herself no matter where on the internet it came from.

“She’d see things that I had no idea about and tell me something was ‘everywhere’ and send me links to websites I didn’t even know existed,” one former staffer told CNN, who was among those who recounted the first lady often complaining about stories from obscure sources. “It was not ‘everywhere.’”

Trump had informed West Wing officials ahead of time that she planned to make a statement but gave no indication what it was about, the senior White House official said.

The episode has left administration officials befuddled and bracing for the fallout, including the potential for the White House to get bogged down again by Epstein coverage.

Donald Trump defended his wife’s decision on Friday, telling The New York Times that “she had a right to talk about it,” even if he personally questioned whether he would have gone about it the same way.

The first lady on Thursday called for more congressional scrutiny of Epstein — specifically allowing survivors of his abuse to testify at public hearings, which undercut her husband’s insistence in recent months that Americans should move on to other topics.

On Friday, House Oversight Chairman James Comer committed to hold more hearings.

“I agree with the first lady,” the Kentucky Republican said on Fox News. “We will have hearings.”

A spokesman for the first lady declined to comment. The White House did not respond to a request for comment.

She ‘does what she wants to do when she wants to do it’

The first lady’s decision underscores the remarkable independence that she enjoys within the administration, where public statements are typically closely coordinated and can be scrutinized for days ahead of time.

Melania Trump, by contrast, has long operated largely apart from the rest of the White House, pursuing her own initiatives and only occasionally lending her voice to support priorities on the president’s broader agenda, even as she remains one of the most influential figures around him. Over the last year, she’s often been absent from Washington, preferring to spend most of her time in Florida and New York.

“When I worked on the [2024 Trump] campaign, we literally never knew what she was doing,” a former senior campaign official told CNN.

The first lady has kept a small inner circle throughout, and remains wary of the press, having sat for only three interviews so far this term — all of which were with Fox News, and all meant to promote her documentary film. In keeping with her approach during her husband’s first term, she has sought to fiercely protect the privacy of her and her family.

“All she cares about is her family,” said one person close to the White House. “She doesn’t care about politics.”

That hyper-protective mindset could at times manifest as a fixation on what she saw as unflattering coverage that she believed was damaging to her or her family, multiple people familiar with the matter said. And since her husband’s return to the White House, perhaps no topic has challenged the public’s perception of the first family like the Epstein files.

While much of the scrutiny last year focused on Donald Trump’s past ties to Epstein — fueling his efforts to brand the topic a Democratic “hoax” — it has also resurfaced photos of Melania Trump with Epstein and correspondence between her and his accomplice, Ghislaine Maxwell. The Epstein files included a friendly email exchange between the two women where Melania Trump signed her message, “Love, Melania,” and Maxwell responded, calling her “sweet pea.” (Neither Trump faces any accusations by law enforcement of wrongdoing in connection with Epstein’s crimes.)

The first lady last year also launched legal challenges over claims made about her and Epstein, eventually winning retractions and apologies from The Daily Beast, HarperCollins Publishers and Democratic strategist James Carville.

Much of that Epstein furor had died down in recent months, as the White House pursued new foreign engagements in Venezuela and against Iran.

Yet for Melania Trump, who remained upset by suggestions that she was close with Epstein, the story never subsided. In her remarks on Thursday, she appeared to address her emails with Maxwell specifically, insisting that they “cannot be categorized as anything more than casual correspondence.”

The first lady also sought to downplay her interactions with Epstein, asserting that the only time she ever “crossed paths” with him was at an event in 2000.

“Epstein did not introduce me to Donald Trump,” she said.

The fervent denial set off speculation across Washington over what potential forthcoming revelation had prompted such a sudden disclosure, with some GOP officials questioning whether Trump had sought to get ahead of fresh reporting. Democrats privately surveyed their colleagues about the status of their party’s ongoing Epstein investigations, only to be told that no major break in the case was imminent, a Democratic Hill aide said.

But within the circle of current and former aides who have worked with Trump, there was ultimately far less surprise at her freelancing. Pressed in the immediate aftermath over whether it was possible neither she nor her team briefed the West Wing ahead of time, the answer was a resounding “yes.”

The first lady had decided to do something — and no one in the White House was going to stop her, regardless of the repercussions.

“She is a very strong and independent woman who does what she wants to do when she wants to do it,” a former staffer to the first lady said.

When asked by the Times if he was upset about his wife reintroducing Epstein into the news, the president said, “I never get upset.”

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CNN’s Betsy Klein contributed to this report.