US First Lady Melania Trump addresses the Republican Convention during its second day from the Rose Garden of the White House August 25, 2020, in Washington, DC.
Brendan Smialowski | AFP | Getty Images
The Justice Department on Tuesday sued the author of a book about first lady Melania Trump, claiming that the writer violated a non-disclosure agreement that barred her from revealing confidential information obtained during her work for the president’s wife.
The lawsuit in federal court in Washington, D.C. asks a judge to order the surrender of the profits from the book by Stephanie Winston Wolkoff, entitled “Melania and Me: The Rise and Fall of My Friendship with the First Lady,” to a government trust.
Wolkoff, who had been close friends with Melania Trump, previously served as a volunteer advisor to the first lady after President Donald Trump took office in 2017.
The suit accused Wolkoff of “flat violation” of breach of contract and breach of fiduciary obligations to the first lady. It says Wolkoff agreed in 2017 to a pact that “promised to maintain strict confidentiality over ‘nonpublic, privileged and/or confidential information’ that she might obtain during her service.”
Despite that promise, the Justice Department said, Wolkoff “has written a book that Simon & Schuster [the book’s publisher] promotes as a ‘scathing tell-all’ and an ‘epic scream of a tell-all.'”
The book was published at the beginning of September.
The lawsuit comes on the heels of failed legal efforts by President Trump’s late brother Robert to prevent the publication of another tell-all book, one written by their niece Mary Trump, which portrays the president in damning light.
Wolkoff, 49, is a past fashion director of Mercedes-Benz New York Fashion Week, and former director of special events at Vogue magazine. She also served as executive producer of Trump’s inauguration.
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