The Department of Justice will no longer pursue a lawsuit against Stephanie Winston Wolkoff, the ex-aide to Melania Trump who wrote an incendiary book about the former first lady, the Washington Post reports.
Wolkoff’s Melania and Me: The Rise and Fall of My Friendship With the First Ladywas published last September by Simon and Schuster imprint Gallery Books. In the book, Wolkoff claims that Melania Trump frequently clashed with her stepdaughter Ivanka Trump and made insulting remarks about her husband and his family.
A reviewer for Kirkus called the book “tedious” and “opportunistic,” and wrote that it was “the kind of book a therapist might tell you to write to get it out of your system.”
The Justice Department sued Wolkoff last October, claiming that she violated a nondisclosure agreement, and sought to seize her profits from the memoir. Politico reports that some lawyers found the lawsuit “unwise” and not based on any existing statutes.
A Justice Department official issued a statement about the withdrawal of the lawsuit reading, “The Department evaluated the case and concluded that dismissal without prejudice was in the best interests of the United States based on the facts and the law.”
An attorney for Wolkoff told the Post that the author and her legal team were “very pleased” with the Justice Department’s decision.
Michael Schaub is a Texas-based journalist and regular contributor to NPR.
