Melania Trump’s Lawsuits: Melania’s List of Defamation Lawsuits Or Threats

A United Kingdom Royal Court of Justice has ruled that Melania Trump has won an apology and monetary damages for a libel lawsuit filed against Britain’s The Daily Mail reports The Guardian. Melania Trump’s lawsuits, in this case, stem from an August 2016 story printed by the Daily Mail, that printed rumors that she had met Donald Trump as a paid escort. Melania Trump has also threatened many other media outlets since the summer of 2016 but has not followed through on those threats.

Melania Trump has experienced many hurdles in the lawsuit settled today after she first sought to receive $150 million dollars in damages. Under that claim, she saw the lawsuit dismissed over controversial wording that critics said had suggested she was hoping to profit financially from being in the White House, and that the escort allegations prevented her from doing so.

BBC News reported that the original lawsuits against the Daily Mail included the following wording.

“[Mrs. Trump had lost] a unique, once in a lifetime opportunity…to launch a broad-based commercial brand in multiple product categories, each of which could have garnered multi-million dollar business relationships for a multi-year term during which she is one of the most photographed women in the world.”

Melania Trump was allegedly going to launch an apparel, accessories, shoes, jewelry, cosmetics, hair care, skin care, and fragrance brand, during the “multi-year term” that her husband was in office.

The controversial wording was dropped, and Melania’s lawsuit was refiled, but the claim of $150 million was not amended. Today, Melania Trump won the lawsuit but did not attain nearly the amount of damages she was seeking, reportedly receiving less than $2.9 million in damages.

She also received an apology from the Daily Mail, and the original story has been retracted. This, despite the fact that the original story was very clear that the allegations were unfounded rumors and had been flatly denied by all parties in question.

It’s only one of many libel lawsuits Melania Trump has either filed or threatened and is the most recent legal win for the notoriously litigious Trump family.

In addition to the paid escort claims, the August 20, 2016, article in the Daily Mail ran with a headline that included the phrase “racy photos.” The article also included racy photos. In the Royal Courts of Justice yesterday, a statement read by John Kelly of the law firm Harbottle and Lewis stated the following.

“The article occupied a double-page spread with the headline printed in large bold font over one-third of page 15. The article was illustrated with an old photograph of the claimant standing naked with her front against a wall, but her face turned towards the camera. The photograph was prominently displayed and occupied almost the entire right-handed side of page 15. Readers of the newspaper could not fail to miss the article.”

Although the article has been retracted, photos of such nature are still proliferating online on social media. There are no further Melania Trump lawsuits pending against anyone that is distributing the photos. The Daily Mail apology noted that to settle the two lawsuits from Melania Trump, one in America and one in the United Kingdom, they agreed to pay damages and costs.

The Daily Mail lawsuit is just one of many lawsuits filed or threatened by Melania Trump. After the same report, a Maryland-based blogger known as Webster Tarpley issued a similar report and was also sued. That case was settled in a similar fashion to the Daily Mail lawsuit, with undisclosed monetary damages and an apology.

But Mr. Tarpley immediately took to his blog Tarpley.Net to issue his own statement of apology. It started noting an alleged “apoplectic tantrum” Melania Trump allegedly suffered as a result of the initial story.

“The August 2016 morning briefing asserted that it was widely known that Melania Trump previously worked as an escort and that Mrs. Trump was in fear of revelations that she used to work as an escort. The briefing also stated that multiple unnamed sources stated that Mrs. Trump was in a state of apoplectic tantrum, suffering from a full-blown nervous breakdown, that both Melania Trump and Donald J. Trump feared the revelations coming to light. While the editors and writers did not generate said rumors, Webster G. Tarpley as editor of the content that appears hereby officially retracts the August 2016 morning briefing in full and apologizes to Mrs. Trump for any duress and harm she may have endured.”

After Melania Trump had filed the lawsuit against Tarpley, a September 1 entry appeared on Tarpley.net saying that her lawsuit was “without merit” and that they were confident she would not be able to meet her “high burden of proving the statements published on my website were defamatory in any way.”

Tarpley further alleged that Melania Trump’s lawsuits were a “blatant attempt to intimate not only me but journalists of all stripes into remaining silent with regard to public figures.” Tarpley referred to the lawsuit as a “direct affront to First Amendment principles and free speech in our democratic society.”

Melania Trump’s threats of lawsuits also include lawsuits related to her child, Barron Trump, after rumors began circulating that he had autism. She did not follow through on those threats. TMZ has inside sources that discuss both the autism allegations and the threats of lawsuits by Melania Trump.

Melania Trump lawsuits or threats of such do not stop there. She also threatened to sue People Magazine after writer Natasha Stoynoff wrote this summer that Donald Trump had sexually assaulted her during an interview in Florida in 2005.

The People Magazine report said that Trump had forced “his tongue down my throat” at an interview at Trump’s Palm Beach, Florida, Mar-a-Lago resort. Stoynoff alleged that Trump told her “they were going to have an affair.”

Stoynoff also wrote that after the incident, she ran into Melania Trump outside of Trump Tower while Barron Trump was just an infant. Melania Trump’s lawsuits threats include a threat to Stoynoff to sue her for those claims. Melania disputed that Stoynoff met her outside of Trump Tower, but did not address the claims made about her husband, Donald Trump.

! @people #NatashaStoynoff pic.twitter.com/zXNm6boveP

— MELANIA TRUMP (@MELANIATRUMP) October 13, 2016

Melania Trump’s lawyers asked for the wording on the Melania Trump meeting to be removed, and asked People Magazine for a retraction. Editor-in-Chief Jess Cagle that was also named in the documents said of the article.

“We stand steadfastly by her, and are proud to publish her clear, credible account of what happened.”

No lawsuit against People Magazine ever occurred, and the Natasha Stoynoff’s article about Donald Trump is still live on People Magazine. It concludes with the statement, “And just for the record, Mr. Trump, I did not consent.” Melania Trump’s lawsuits regarding defamation and libel are represented by the same law firm that successfully sued Gawker website for false allegations against Hulk Hogan.

[Featured Image by Andrew Harnik/AP Images]