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.

The measles situation in the United States is so bad that the disease is spreading south of the border.

Answering a question from a reporter Wednesday, Mexican President Claudia Sheinbaum revealed that the sudden resurgence of measles in Mexico had originated from the U.S.

“It came mainly from the United States, that’s why it shows up in Chihuahua,” Sheinbaum said. “And in Chihuahua there are communities that don’t get vaccinated at all for any vaccine.

“So it specifically began there, where contagion is highest—among people who have not been vaccinated,” she continued.

Measles was declared eradicated from the U.S. in 2000 thanks to its corresponding vaccine. But 2025 challenged the viral extermination with a whopping 2,144 confirmed cases across 45 jurisdictions—the highest count since 1991.

And 2026 is already on course to beat that figure. In just the last month and a half, officials have confirmed more than 800 measles cases in 23 states, according to data from the Center for Outbreak Response Innovation. So far, the outbreak in South Carolina has proven the worst, with at least 605 confirmed cases in the state. Texas, which suffered the bulk of the viral load last year, already has two confirmed cases.

The rising digits could put the U.S. at risk of losing its elimination status, reported U.S. News and World Report.

“A significant percentage of the population is vaccinated against measles,” Sheinbaum said in a statement following the press conference.

She then recommended—on the advice of her secretary of health—that young children, from 6 months to 12 years of age, receive appropriate doses of the measles vaccine for their age group.

“In Jalisco, Colima, Chiapas, Sinaloa, Nayarit, Tabasco, and Mexico City, people aged 13 to 49 who have not been vaccinated should attend,” Sheinbaum added.

Sheinbaum’s report contradicts what Donald Trump has been preaching to his supporters since he was on the campaign trail. In 2024, while Trump accused South American countries of sending all of its “criminals” and “terrorists” into the U.S., Trump also suggested that the Latinos entering the country were bringing with them “very contagious disease.” Yet, according to the Mexican leader, the exact opposite is true.

Measles does not have a cure. The highly contagious disease can spur a blotchy rash, pink eye, a high fever, white spots inside the mouth, full body aches, pneumonia, and severe dehydration, and can result in hospitalization or even death.

Fortunately, however, it is highly preventable thanks to a vaccine that was developed by a couple of American scientists in 1963. In 1971, researchers created yet another vaccine capable of preventing measles as well as two other contagious illnesses—mumps and rubella—thanks to miraculous developments in modern medicine. The joint shot was named the MMR vaccine, an acronym for “measles, mumps, and rubella.”

America’s diminishing herd immunity is due to a growing movement of anti-vax parents—currently championed at the federal level by Health Secretary Robert F. Kennedy Jr.—who refuse to provide their children with the same public health advantages that they received in their youth, mostly in fear of thoroughly debunked conspiracy theories that, at one point, linked autism to the jab.

The researcher who sparked the myth that vaccines cause autism did so with a fraudulent paper. As a result, he lost his medical license and eventually rescinded his opinion. Since then, dozens of studies, including one that surveyed more than 660,000 children over the course of 11 years, have proven there’s no correlation between autism and vaccines.

During the deadly measles outbreak in Texas last year, Kennedy advised that state residents take extra vitamins rather than receive the vaccine, and justified a local religious community’s decision not to receive the vaccine by claiming that the measles vaccine contains “aborted fetus debris” as well as “DNA particles.” Fact check: It does not.

Even Kennedy’s own officials have denied his health conspiracies, potentially at cost to their employment.

But the 71-year-old has a lot to gain from pushing disinformation about the jab: the more doubt and division Kennedy sows, the more money he’ll make. Ahead of his appointment, Kennedy disclosed that he made roughly $10 million in 2024 from speaking fees and dividends from his anti-vaccine lawsuits. He’s also made cash from merchandising handled by his nonprofit, Children’s Health Defense, which bungled anti-vax messaging in Samoa so badly that it started a 2019 outbreak that resulted in the deaths of at least 83 people, the majority of whom were children under the age of 5.

As a reminder: Since their invention, vaccines have proven to be one of the greatest accomplishments of modern medicine. The medical shots are so effective at preventing illness that they have effectively eradicated some of the worst diseases from our collective culture, from rabies to polio and smallpox—a fact that has possibly fooled some into believing that the viruses and their complications aren’t a significant threat to the average, health-conscious individual.

Gallup will no longer track presidential approval rating after nearly nine decades of doing so, stating that the move “reflects an evolution in how Gallup focuses its public research and thought leadership,” according to The Hill.

“This change is part of a broader, ongoing effort to align all of Gallup’s public work with its mission,” a spokesperson for Gallup said. “We look forward to continuing to offer independent research that adheres to the highest standards of social science.... This is a strategic shift solely based on Gallup’s research goals and priorities.”

This decision comes as President Trump has recently experienced some of the lowest approval ratings for a president in decades. While Trump has made no public threat to Gallup, he has threatened other pollsters multiple times in the recent past. In December 2024, he sued the Des Moines Register, its parent company Gannett, and pollster Anne Seltzer for her poll findings that Kamala Harris would win Iowa (she didn’t). And in January, he verbally attacked The New York Times after a poll that found independent voters have turned against Trump.

The president’s current approval rating sits at a meager 38 percent.

Attorney General Pam Bondi stomped and raged her way through her hearing before the House Judiciary Committee Wednesday, but her refusal to answer one particularly heated line of questioning inspired Bondi to accuse a Jewish lawmaker of antisemitism in an apparent attempt to undermine the mounting pressure.

Representative Becca Balint pressed Bondi on the seemingly unquestioned tenure of Commerce Secretary Howard Lutnick, who was caught lying about his connections to Jeffrey Epstein in the Justice Department’s latest document dump. Lutnick had previously claimed he cut off contact with the child sex trafficker in 2005, but emails released by the DOJ revealed that Lutnick continued messaging Epstein for years afterward, including at least one instance in which he brought his wife and children to Epstein’s island.

Nonetheless, Lutnick has remained in his position.

“By 2008, we knew that Epstein was a convicted sexual abuser,” pressed Balint. “And we now know that Lutnick went to Epstein’s island in 2012.

“How was that not a deal breaker for the president, and why aren’t you asking questions of the commerce secretary about what he saw on the island, which he lied about not ever going to?” Balint asked.

But Bondi refused to answer, claiming that Lutnick had done an appropriate job addressing the lie himself.

Balint then inquired if the DOJ had questioned other Trump officials who were revealed to be connected to Epstein in the unredacted version of the files, including U.S. Deputy Secretary of Defense Stephen Feinberg. But Bondi was apparently stumped by the question.

“I’m stunned you want to continue talking about Epstein,” Bondi eventually sputtered.

“What is clear is we have evidence that three senior officials within the Trump administration have ties to Jeffrey Epstein and I can conclude from what you are saying that you have not talked to them,” Balint said as Bondi yelled over her.

“Americans would be shocked to learn that you are not interested in talking with these officials,” Balint continued, raising her voice as she listed officials across the world who have lost their jobs or titles after they were exposed to be affiliated with Epstein. “That would be a good start.”

But as the Vermont Democrat continued speaking, Bondi got louder.

“Please stop talking,” Balint spat at Bondi’s attempts to deflect.

“The American people have a right to know the answers to this. These are senior officials in the Trump administration. This is not a game, Secretary,” Balint shouted.

“I’m attorney general,” Bondi sneered.

“My apologies, I couldn’t tell,” Balint said.

Balint then implored Bondi to finally meet with the survivors, which the DOJ has not yet done. But as Balint’s time expired, Bondi asked for 20 seconds to respond.

“I was curious if you, Congresswoman, asked Bill Clinton that. Didn’t see one tweet … when Joe Biden was in office about Bill Clinton. Didn’t ask Merrick Garland, not one thing.

“I want the record to reflect that—you know, with this antisemitic culture right now, she voted against a resolution condemning antisemitism,” Bondi said, seemingly referring to Balint’s 2023 “no” vote on the Antisemitism Awareness Act—which actually could be used to censor political criticism of Israel on college campuses.

But Balint would know best about antisemitism—considering that her family was among the victims of the Holocaust.

“Woah woah, do you want to go there, attorney general? Do you want to go there?” Balint yelled. “Are you serious? Talking about antisemitism to a woman who lost her grandfather in the Holocaust? Really? Really?”

Balint then turned off her microphone and walked away from the bench.

Attorney General Pam Bondi got called out Wednesday for using a cheat sheet of personal attacks against Democratic lawmakers in order to dodge tough questions and—ironically—offered a pathetic comeback.

During a House Judiciary Committee hearing, Florida Representative Jared Moskowitz tore into the Department of Justice for repeatedly lying about Donald Trump’s ties to Jeffrey Epstein.

For example, FBI Director Kash Patel had previously claimed Trump’s name appeared in the Epstein file fewer than 100 times, Moskowitz said.

“We now know that’s not true. Trump’s name appears more times in the Epstein files than God’s name appears in the book about God,” Moskowitz said, holding up a Bible. “OK, by the way, this is the Trump Bible—move over, King James.

“Trump’s name also appears more times in the Epstein file than Harry Potter’s name appears in the seven books about Harry Potter,” he added.

Democratic lawmakers who reviewed the unredacted files this week have claimed that Trump’s name appeared “more than a million times.”

It seems that Moskowitz couldn’t be bothered to actually ask Bondi any substantive questions—and rightly so. The attorney general had repeatedly demonstrated she wasn’t interested in providing any answers. Instead, she continually referred to her own burn book on Democrats, firing back accusations that were unrelated to the hearing.

At the end of his speaking time, Moskowitz actually challenged Bondi to take her best shot at him.

“So, because I’m curious, and I’d like to see, flip to the ‘Jared Moskowitz’ section of the binder. I’m interested to see what staff provided on the ‘oppo’ on me,” Moskowitz said. “And because we’re in the Olympics, I’m gonna give it a grade.”

He held up a blank score card as another lawmaker laughed into the microphone.

“So, first of all, nothing is funny about mocking the Bible and holding up a Trump Bible—that’s what you did,” Bondi replied. “You made a joke, and I find offense to that, that’s all I have to say to you. Shame.”

“I want it from the burn book. Which is the best one? What you got?” Moskowitz pressed. The committee chairman quickly moved on.

Bondi gave a truly humiliating performance before the panel Wednesday, losing her cool at questions about Epstein and even seemingly lying under oath to defend Trump.

The FAA briefly closed the airspace over El Paso, Texas, after the military used a high-powered laser to shoot down what appeared to be a drone but was actually just a party balloon. 

CBS reports that the Pentagon wanted to use the technology to practice shooting down drones near Fort Bliss, which is next to El Paso International Airport. Despite meetings scheduled to discuss safety issues, DOD officials wanted to test the laser quickly, claiming that legal requirements over the protection of facilities from unmanned aircraft had been satisfied.

The anti-drone laser was launched earlier this week near America’s southern border to target what was thought to be foreign drones. Instead, a party balloon was shot down.

FAA Administrator Bryan Bedford then decided to close El Paso’s airspace Tuesday night without telling the White House, the DOD, or the Department of Homeland Security, according to unnamed sources. Bedford reportedly told officials that the airspace would be closed until the Pentagon resolved its issues with the FAA. 

Initially, the restriction on planes flying below 18,000 was set for 10 days, something that hasn’t been in place since the 9/11 attacks in 2001. Any aircraft that violated the restriction could have been shot down. 

Wednesday morning’s airspace closure caused a brief panic among government agencies, as even emergency medical evacuations were halted. When the discussion reached the White House, the FAA lifted the restriction within minutes. 

“The FAA and [Department of War] acted swiftly to address a cartel drone incursion. The threat has been neutralized, and there is no danger to commercial travel in the region. The restrictions have been lifted and normal flights are resuming,” Secretary of Transportation Sean Duffy said in a statement. 

The DOD failed to communicate with the FAA in this instance, which has happened before during Trump’s second term. Just over a year ago, a military helicopter collided with a passenger plane near Ronald Reagan National Airport and killed 67 people. This time, a brief airspace closure and a downed party balloon seem to be the only repercussions (that we know about). Hopefully, this is an isolated incident and not evidence of a more serious issue.