Surprise! Melania Trump Is Also in the Epstein Files

Newly unredacted emails from the Epstein files reveal that Melania Trump was in friendly contact with Ghislaine Maxwell.

The first lady warmly reached out to Maxwell after New York magazine published its famed profile on Maxwell’s longtime criminal associate and boyfriend, Jeffrey Epstein, who was referred to in the piece as the “International Moneyman of Mystery.”

“Dear G! How are you?” wrote Melania Trump. “Nice story about JE in NY mag. You look great on the picture.”

Several photos were included in the body of the New York magazine piece, including separate images of Epstein with Bill Clinton, model Brenda Schad, Donald Trump, Robert Kennedy Jr., and Maxwell.

“I know you are very busy flying all over the world. How was Palm Beach? I cannot wait to go down,” Melania continued in her email. “Give me a call when you are back in NY.

“Have a great time! Love, Melania,” she concluded.

The email address on the note was initially redacted by the Justice Department, though why the agency protected Melania’s communications but outed the identities of dozens of Epstein’s victims is unclear.

However, unidentified sources told left-leaning news commentator Aaron Parnas that the email was issued by a “MelaniaKMelania” email, which was later found tied to a record of Donald Trump’s contact information under the banner of the Trump Organization.

Several prominent Trump associates, including officials within the administration, have been tied into the Epstein files in a significant way—including the president himself.

Donald Trump was mentioned more than 38,000 times in the latest batch of Epstein files, according to a review of the DOJ’s recent document dump. All in all, Trump was flagged in more than 5,300 files in the document cache.

Earlier this week, Congress gained access to the unredacted files, sparking shouting matches during Attorney General Pam Bondi’s hearing Wednesday about the Justice Department’s suspicious decision to protect the identities of Epstein’s associates (and the alleged perpetrators of sexual abuse) while harming the victims by releasing their names and contact information in full, as well as failing to censor nude images of them that Epstein collected.

Donald Trump’s border czar Tom Homan announced Thursday that the Trump administration is ending its ICE crackdown in Minneapolis.

“As a result of our efforts here Minnesota is now less of a sanctuary state for criminals,” Homan said at a press conference. “I have proposed, and President Trump has concurred, that this surge operation conclude.”

The surge began on December 1, and quickly alienated the residents in and around Minneapolis due to violent tactics and the targeting of protesters. Two U.S. citizens, Renee Good and Alex Pretti, were shot and killed by federal agents last month.

“In the next week, we’re going to deploy the officers here on detail back” to their home states, Homan said, adding that “a significant drawdown of personnel is already underway.”

This is a developing story.

Just days after Commerce Secretary Howard Lutnick was exposed for his complete lie about cutting off contact with sexual predator Jeffrey Epstein, yet another Trump official was discovered to be in the Epstein files.

In 2016, Dr. Mehmet Oz, now the administrator of the Centers for Medicare & Medicaid Services, invited Epstein over for a Valentine’s party—eight years after Epstein was registered as a sex offender.

In an email from Mehmet and Lisa Oz to Epstein, the subject line reads, “Mehmet and Liza Oz’s Valentine’s Day Celebration.” The message contains a digital invite.

This is just the latest example of the deep ties that Epstein had with the wealthy elites in the Trump administration (and previous administrations, as well). And regardless of what people like Lutnick say, it is apparent that they could not have cared less about Epstein’s sex offender status, as it really was no impediment to his full return and acceptance into these circles.

“An easier question at this point is who in the Trump administration WAS NOT friends with Epstein?” Democratic Representative Malcolm Kenyatta quipped.

Anyone with such direct ties to Epstein after his 2008 sex offender conviction has some questions to answer. In a just world, they’d have already resigned.

Donald Trump got a rare rebuke from the House Wednesday night as six Republicans joined all but one Democrat to vote against his tariffs on Canada.

Representatives Don Bacon of Nebraska, Dan Newhouse of Washington, Kevin Kiley of California, Thomas Massie of Kentucky, Brian Fitzpatrick of Pennsylvania, and Jeff Hurd of Colorado all decided that these tariffs needed to go. Democratic Representative Jared Golden of Maine went against his party to vote in favor of keeping the tariff against Canada in place.

The six Republicans defied a threat from Trump on Truth Social just before the vote that voting against him would lead them to “seriously suffer the consequences come Election time, and that includes Primaries!”

“TARIFFS have given us Great National Security because the mere mention of the word has Countries agreeing to our strongest wishes. TARIFFS have given us Economic and National Security, and no Republican should be responsible for destroying this privilege,” Trump wrote.

Now the bill goes to the Senate, which has already voted against tariffs on Canada twice with four Republicans lending their support. That’s not enough to get the two-thirds majority necessary to override a veto from Trump, but it’ll send a symbolic message to the president.

Trump’s tariffs have hurt the economy, driving up the cost of many goods and worsening relations with Canada.

With the midterm elections coming up, voters will be thinking about affordability and their own job security. Likewise, many Republican members of Congress are also worried about whether they can win reelection. Fitzpatrick and Hurd, for example, are in battleground districts, and Bacon and Newhouse are choosing retirement over running again. While this is just one vote, Trump and the GOP should be nervous.

In a humiliating defeat for Donald Trump’s administration, all federalized National Guard troops have been pulled out of American cities that never wanted them there after failing to accomplish what the president asked them to do.

Hundreds of service members deployed as part of Trump’s federal takeover of American cities—including the 500 to Chicago, 200 to Portland, Oregon, and 100 troops remaining in Los Angeles—were quietly dispatched home by the end of January, U.S. Northern Command told The Washington Post Wednesday.

There are still National Guard service members deployed in American cities, but only ones working under a nonfederal status. More than 2,500 National Guard troops remain in Washington, D.C., where they will continue their essential work as groundskeepers for the capital city until the end of the year. There is an ongoing presence in Memphis and New Orleans, but those deployments are being overseen by the governors of Tennessee and Louisiana, respectively.

The decision to remove the troops was not publicly acknowledged, as the Trump administration has tried desperately to proclaim that they’re “winning” big-time.

Trump’s embarrassing pull-out game comes after fierce opposition from state leaders and a staggering series of legal defeats.

In November, a federal judge ruled that Trump’s deployment in Washington had “exceeded the bounds” of the Pentagon’s authority, and a federal judge in Portland ruled that Trump “did not have a lawful basis to federalize the National Guard.” In December, a federal judge ordered him to remove National Guard troops from California, rejecting the federal government’s inane assertion that protests against federal immigration agents amounted to rebellion, and the Supreme Court refused to allow the Trump administration to deploy more troops to Chicago

Randy Manner, a retired two-star general in the U.S. Army and former acting vice chief of the National Guard, told the Post that the rules governing National Guard troops meant that they were “100 percent ineffective in doing what [Trump] wanted them to do.”

“The administration finally realized the amount of resistance that was coming up, in terms of legal and public condemnation, was more than anyone anticipated,” he told the Post.