An attorney for Trump, Charles Harder, wrote in an email to Politico that would-be next first lady has put “several” outlets on notice “for making false and defamatory statements about her supposedly having been an “escort” in the 1990s”. All such statements are 100 percent false, highly damaging to her reputation, and personally hurtful.
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The controversial wife of Republican presidential nominee Donald Trump hired the law firm of Harder, Miller and Abrams, which eventually sent notices to The Daily Mail, The Week, Politico, Inquisitr, Tarpley, Before It’s News, Liberal America, LawNewz, Winning Democrats and Bipartisan Report.
He referred to an article published on August 19 by The Daily Mail questioning the biography and the modeling career of Melania Trump, who is of Slovenian origin and has been married to the mogul since 2005.
The suit comes in the wake of Trump launching an offensive against many media outlets, banning some such as Politico and the Washington Post from covering his rallies as well as calling for stricter libel laws in the US.
“The “on notice” practice is meant to give the [news outlets] a chance to retract the story and to remove it from their web site”, said Richard Epstein, a fellow at Stanford’s Hoover Institution and a professor at New York University and the University of Chicago.
So far, both Inquisitrand Bipartisan Report have issued apologies and retractions.
Donald Trump, who has railed against undocumented immigrants throughout his campaign, said on August 9 that his wife would hold a news conference “over the next couple of weeks” to address her compliance with immigration laws.
The Mail never explicitly reported that Melania Trump was a hooker – just that the agency she worked for was involved in prostitution.
Harder represented former professional wrestler Hulk Hogan in the invasion-of-privacy lawsuit against Gawker Media that ultimately resulted in Gawker’s filing for bankruptcy.
The Daily Mail story remains online.
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The Daily Mail did not immediately return a Patch request for comment.
