Melania Trump Denies Association With Jeffrey Epstein

First lady Melania Trump denied that she had close ties with the late convicted sex offender Jeffrey Epstein in a surprise public statement Thursday, calling suggestions to the contrary “lies.”

“I have never been friends with Jeffrey Epstein,” she said to reporters gathered at the White House. She also denied any friendly relations with Epstein’s co-conspirator Ghislaine Maxwell. She said she had “casual” email correspondence with Maxwell and suggested any association was a result of their inhabiting the same New York social scene.

The first lady said she has “never had any knowledge of Epstein abuse of his victims.” She observed the existence of what she called “fake” images and statements on social media about alleged links with the sex offender.

It was not immediately clear what images or statements she meant, but she said they had been “circulating on social media for years.” “Be cautious about what you believe. These images and stories are completely false,” she said.

The first lady did not respond to shouted questions from reporters about why she chose to discuss these matters at this moment in time.

She also noted that she and President Donald Trump met “by chance” and said that Epstein did not introduce them.

Trump has denied wrongdoing in relation to the Epstein allegations, and no evidence has suggested that Trump took part in Epstein’s trafficking operation. The president also has maintained that he and Epstein had a falling out years ago.

David Oscar Markus, Maxwell’s attorney, did not immediately return a request for comment.

Melania Trump then called on Congress to hold a “public hearing specifically centered around the survivors” where they would be allowed to testify.

“Give these victims the opportunity to testify under oath in front of Congress with the power of sworn testimony, each and every woman should have a day to tell her story in public, if she wishes, and then her testimony should be permanently entered into the Congressional Record then and only then, you will have the truth.”

The president has expressed discontent over the immense public and political focus on Epstein for months, and called on Republican lawmakers in November to release the contents of the Epstein files held at the Department of Justice and return to messaging on affordability.

“Nobody cared about Jeffrey Epstein when he was alive and, if the Democrats had anything, they would have released it before our Landslide Election Victory,” Donald Trump wrote at the time on Truth Social.

The House Oversight Committee has been conducting its own probe of the Epstein case and issued a number of subpoenas to compel testimony from witnesses. Depositions, however, have been held behind closed doors, and the panel has not held a formal public hearing to discuss its findings.

"We agree with First Lady Melania Trump’s call for a public hearing with the survivors of Jeffrey Epstein," the Oversight panel's top Democrat Robert Garcia of California said in a post on X. "We encourage Chairman Comer to respond to the First Lady’s request and schedule a public hearing immediately."

A spokesperson for House Oversight Committee chair James Comer (R-Ky.) did not immediately return a request for comment.

It would not be the first time that lawmakers interfaced with those who have accused Epstein of horrific crimes. A bipartisan group — including Speaker Mike Johnson — met with some victims in September, before Congress passed legislation that compelled the release of Epstein-related materials in the Justice Department's possession.

During a hearing with the House Judiciary Committee earlier this year, Rep. Pramila Jayapal (D-Wash.) asked then-Attorney General Pam Bondi, who has since been ousted, to apologize directly to the victims behind her who had traveled to Capitol Hill to see Bondi testify. Bondi declined, saying she would not "get in the gutter for [Jayapal's] theatrics." Those victims also indicated they had not been able to share their stories with the Justice Department.

The Justice Department’s release of the Epstein files, totaling more than 3 million pages of documents, has not led to any arrests in the U.S. since their publication in January.

Rep. Nancy Mace (R-S.C.), who led the effort to subpoena Bondi, thanked Melania Trump in a post on X “for standing up for survivors and demanding transparency.”

A spokesperson for Mace said she supported holding a hearing but had not spoken with Comer about it yet.

Democrats on the House Oversight Committee had planned to hold a so-called shadow hearing with victims of Epstein later this month in Palm Beach. In the minority in both chambers of Congress, Democrats cannot call formal hearings on their own. But that meeting in Florida has been postponed for later this spring.