First lady Melania Trump has settled her defamation lawsuit against a Maryland blogger, who agreed to apologize to the Trump family and pay her a “substantial sum,” her lawyers said in a statement they released Tuesday morning.
“I posted an article on August 2, 2016, about Melania Trump that was replete with false and defamatory statements about her,” the blogger, Webster Tarpley, said in the statement provided by Trump’s attorneys.
Tarpley, 71 of Gaithersburg, Md., did not immediately respond to requests for comment. One of his attorneys, Danielle Giroux, confirmed that a settlement had been reached.
The blogger’s article in August, reported about unfounded rumors that Melania Trump once worked as an escort.
Trump’s attorneys at the firm of Harder, Mirell & Abrams, based in Beverly Hills, declined to provide the settlement amount.
“I had no legitimate factual basis to make these false statements and I fully retract them,” according to comments attributed to Tarpley by the Trump attorneys in their statement. “I acknowledge that these false statements were very harmful and hurtful to Mrs. Trump and her family, and therefore I sincerely apologize to Mrs. Trump, her son, her husband and her parents for making these false statements.”
Melania Trump also has sued the online Daily Mail, which published a similar article in August. A Maryland judge this month tossed out that litigation – which like the Tarpley claims were filed in Montgomery County – based on jurisdictional issues. Trump’s attorneys provided a copy of the refiled lawsuit they said they entered in New York state court.
Trump attended a hearing in December on the case at a courtroom in Rockville, Md.
(c) 2017, The Washington Post ยท Dan Morse
