US President Donald Trump’s longtime biographer Michael Wolff said that the White House believes that Ghislaine Maxwell’s family leaked Jeffrey Epstein’s “birthday book” to the Wall Street Journal as a warning sign to Trump that she has damaging information against him.According to Wolff, this prompted a response from the department of justice, which rushed to meet with Maxwell to determine what else she might have. It also sheds light on why Trump is reportedly considering a pardon for her.“In the White House, they believe that the story in the Wall Street Journal about the birthday greeting that Donald Trump, the salacious birthday greeting, that Donald Trump sent Jeffrey Epstein in 2003 on the occasion of his 50th birthday, was a leak from the Maxwell family,” Wolff revealed.“And in the White House, they regarded this as, quote, a shot across the bow. So a threat, you know, if that Ghislaine had damaging material on Donald Trump.”Wolff added that Trump’s legal team quickly acted in response. “So Donald Trump’s lawyer who, as it happens, is also the number two in the Justice Department, but principally is Donald Trump’s own lawyer, went down, and I expect to try to figure out exactly what Ghislaine Maxwell has, and then they would figure out how they might have to handle that.”The allegations come amid renewed attention on Trump’s ties to Epstein, particularly after the Wall Street Journal reported that Attorney General Pam Bondi told Trump during a May briefing that his name had come up in DOJ files related to Epstein.Earlier, Wolff also stirred controversy by claiming Epstein played a pivotal role in introducing Melania Trump to her future husband. Speaking on The Daily Beast podcast, Wolff said Melania was “very involved” in Epstein’s social circle at the time. He claimed the introduction occurred through Paolo Zampolli, founder of ID Models, who helped Melania move to the United States. “She’s introduced by a model agent, both of whom Trump and Epstein are involved with… Epstein knew her well,” Wolff said.He also cast doubt on Melania’s past, pointing to what he called a “culture of models of indeterminate age.”Melania Trump has denied any Epstein connection, insisting in her book Melania that she met Trump at the Kit Kat Klub in New York, where he was with another date but spent the evening speaking to her. “It was a refreshing departure from the usual superficial small talk,” she writes.Despite Trump’s repeated efforts to distance himself from Epstein, a photo from 2000 shows Donald and Melania posing at Mar-a-Lago alongside Epstein and Maxwell. Epstein himself once claimed that he introduced the couple.
