In the gilded corridors of Trump Tower and the hallowed chambers of a New York courtroom, a legal war is brewing that could force First Lady Melania Trump and President Donald Trump to answer questions they have avoided for decades. What began as a demand for a billion-dollar apology has spiraled into a high-stakes legal counter-offensive that threatens to expose the Trump family’s connections to convicted sex offender Jeffrey Epstein under oath.
At the center of this storm is journalist Michael Wolff, the bestselling author of Fire and Fury, who is using an aggressive anti-SLAPP strategy to turn the tables on the First Lady. The result is a legal entanglement that legal experts say poses a significant political and personal risk to the President.
The “Lolita Express” Allegations and the $1 Billion Threat
The conflict ignited in mid-October 2025, following comments Wolff made on The Daily Beast’s podcast, “Inside Trump’s Head,” and in subsequent articles. Wolff suggested that Melania Trump was “very involved” in managing the White House’s response to the Epstein scandal and floated a specific, explosive allegation: that Donald Trump may have first been intimate with Melania on Epstein’s infamous private jet, the “Lolita Express” .
Melania Trump’s attorney, Alejandro Brito, responded swiftly. On October 15, 2025, Wolff received a “threat letter” demanding a public retraction and an apology, warning that failure to comply would result in a defamation lawsuit seeking over $1 billion in damages . The letter described Wolff’s statements as “false, defamatory, and lewd” .
However, rather than retreating, Wolff—a resident of Amagansett, New York—launched a preemptive strike. On October 21, he filed a 15-page civil suit in New York State Supreme Court .
Wolff’s Legal Jujitsu: The Anti-SLAPP Offensive
Wolff’s lawsuit does not seek to prove his statements true immediately; instead, it argues that Melania’s threatened suit is a classic example of a Strategic Lawsuit Against Public Participation, or SLAPP suit—a legal action intended to intimidate and silence critics rather than win in court .
“Mrs. Trump and her ‘unitary executive’ husband along with their MAGA myrmidons have made a practice of threatening those who speak against them with costly SLAPP actions in order to silence their speech,” Wolff’s filing reads . By invoking New York’s anti-SLAPP law, Wolff is seeking a declaratory judgment that his reporting is protected speech, and he is asking the court to order Melania to pay his legal fees and damages .
But the most dangerous aspect of Wolff’s strategy for the Trump family is his stated goal for the discovery phase of the trial. “To be perfectly honest, I’d like nothing better than to get Donald Trump and Melania Trump under oath in front of a court reporter, and actually find out all of the details of their relationship with Epstein,” Wolff said in a social media post from his Hamptons home .
Wolff claims to have a significant evidentiary advantage: hours of recorded interviews with Epstein himself, conducted before the financier’s 2019 jailhouse suicide .
The Cat-and-Mouse Game of Serving the First Lady
While the legal stakes are immense, the procedural aspects have turned into a farce. Wolff has publicly claimed that Melania is “hiding from me” to avoid being served with legal papers .
Wolff detailed his struggles on The Daily Beast’s podcast. After Melania’s attorney refused to accept service on her behalf, Wolff hired professional process servers. When they went to Trump Tower, security initially accepted the papers, only to call back later and refuse. “They’re like, ‘No way are we serving the first lady of the United States,’” Wolff recounted .
A subsequent attempt saw Trump Tower staff threaten to throw the papers “in the garbage” . However, the exchange provided a key piece of testimony: the doorman confirmed that Melania Trump does indeed reside at Trump Tower, contradicting the opaque nature of her residence status .
In a January 2026 filing, Melania’s legal team used this confusion to their advantage, moving to dismiss the lawsuit by claiming she was “not at home” and was never properly served, arguing that Trump Tower is “not Mrs. Trump’s residence” for legal purposes . The case has since been removed to federal court in the Southern District of New York, where Judge Mary Kay Vyskocil is presiding .
The Impact on Trump: A Political and Legal Quagmire
The lawsuit places President Trump in a precarious position. While the White House has dismissed Wolff as a “lying sack of s—” and a “serial fabulist” , the legal reality is that a deposition could force the President to answer questions about his decades-long friendship with Epstein under penalty of perjury.
The President has a long history of threatening lawsuits against media outlets and authors but rarely follows through to discovery. This time, however, it is Wolff who is driving the bus. If the case survives Melania’s motion to dismiss, the Trumps will face a difficult choice: settle with Wolff—effectively admitting they wanted to avoid the witness box—or face a sworn interrogation about Epstein.
Furthermore, Wolff’s lawsuit highlights a pattern of behavior. It notes that Melania previously threatened Hunter Biden with a $1 billion lawsuit for repeating the same Epstein allegations . It also references a $2.7 million defamation settlement Melania received from the Daily Mail in 2017, and the Trump Justice Department’s failed attempt to sue Melania’s former adviser Stephanie Winston Wolkoff .
For a president who has built his political brand on projecting strength, watching his wife engage in a legal battle that could compel them both to testify about Jeffrey Epstein represents a significant political liability. As Wolff’s lawsuit puts it, the goal is to stop the Trumps from using “North Korean style confessions and apologies” to silence the press . Whether the courts agree will determine if the truth about Trump and Epstein finally gets its day in court.