A federal judge dismissed author Michael Wolff’s lawsuit against first lady Melania Trump, NBC News reports.
Wolff, a critic of President Donald Trump and the author of books including Fire and Fury and All or Nothing, had sued Melania Trump under New York’s anti-SLAPP law. SLAPP stands for “strategic lawsuits against public participation”; the law is designed to protect journalists and others from frivolous suits that would silence them through the prospect of extensive legal fees.
The lawsuit came after Trump threatened to sue Wolff for defamation after the author claimed in a since-retracted Daily Beast article that Trump was involved in the social circle of Jeffrey Epstein, the deceased sex offender, and that she had sex with Donald Trump on Epstein’s private jet.
Judge Mary Kay Vyskocil tossed out Wolff’s lawsuit, writing that he was engaged in an “inappropriate level of tactical gamesmanship.” She said that Wolff and Trump “must litigate [their dispute] according to the same procedures as everyone else.”
A spokesperson for Trump, Nick Clemens, said the first lady would continue to fight against “those who spread malicious and defamatory falsehoods as they desperately try to get undeserved attention and money from their unlawful conduct.”
Wolff reacted to Vyskocil’s decision, noting that the judge had been appointed by Donald Trump. “We knew from the beginning when we drew a Trump judge in federal court, in the Southern District in New York, that that was problematic,” he said on a podcast. “I think our attitude was, OK, you know, that’s the hand we drew. We never had any illusions that this was going to proceed in a straight line, this case. But make no mistake, we are going forward with this.”
Michael Schaub is a contributing writer.
