Women who once held positions close to former President Donald Trump, 77, and his wife Melania, 54, aren’t surprised that she didn’t show up at his New York hush money trial.
“Donald finally got caught… and along the way, Melania knew exactly who she married,” said Stephanie Winston Wolkoff, a former longtime advisor to Melania, in a Friday interview with CNN. “She knew that this was a transactional marriage. She became a top model, he became, you know, a loving, doting father and it set them up for their run for the White House,” in 2016 and later in 2020.
Melania is currently along for another run to the White House with her husband, who is the presumptive GOP candidate, and has been leading ahead of Democrat President Joe Biden in several polls. A major difference this time is the mountain of legal issues Trump faces.
Of these challenges, the New York hush money case cut the closest to his relationship with Melania. Per the allegations, he developed a scheme to pay adult film star Stormy Daniels $130,000 to stop her from coming forward about an alleged affair.
A jury found Trump guilty of all 34 counts of Falsifying Business Records in the First Degree brought against him.
“[Former Trump attorney Michael] Cohen and Trump, knowing how [devastating] Daniels’ story would be to the campaign, agreed to buy her story to defraud the voting public and prevent them from learning the information before Election Day,” said a press release from the District Attorney of New York County.
According to Business Insider, the alleged affair with Daniels would have taken place just four months after Melania gave birth to Barron Trump in 2006. Former Trump White House press secretary Stephanie Grisham told CNN earlier this week she wasn’t surprised that Melania didn’t show up at Trump’s Manhattan trial dates.
“I think Melania and Ivanka are both thinking of their own optics,” she said of Trump’s current wife and his daughter with late former wife Ivana.
According to an anonymous social source cited by People Magazine, Melania “has been angry about this whole thing for a long time,” and the jury decision “is another layer of poison for her.”
In addition to the alleged affair between Trump and Daniels, the New York DA said Trump paid $30,000 to a former Trump Tower doorman who claimed to have a story about a child Trump had out of wedlock and that $150,000 was paid to a woman who alleged she had a sexual relationship with Trump.
“In the weeks before the election, a video from the TV show Access Hollywood became public in which TRUMP was recorded on a hot mic saying in part, ‘You know, I’m automatically attracted to beautiful women, I just start kissing them, it’s like a magnet, just kiss, I don’t even wait, when you are a star they let you do it, you can do anything, grab them by the p****, you can do anything,’” per the DA’s office.
Trump was also ordered to pay a bond of more than $91 million this year related to a defamation case brought by columnist E. Jean Carroll, 80. She accused Trump of raping her in the dressing room of a New York Department store. Previously, Audacy reported that Melania urged her husband to defend himself against the Carroll allegations, citing Grisham.
Katie Rogers – who wrote “American Woman” about the transformation of the modern first lady, has said that rumors of Melania avoiding events in resistance or disagreement with Trump probably aren’t true.
“The reality of it is that, after reporting on this, she mirrors her husband’s grievances and channels them in her own way and is, in most cases, not a mediating force for him at all,” said Rogers. “In fact, the opposite is often true, where if her husband is being attacked, she encourages him to fight back.”
However, Wolkoff thinks this case might be different.
“I think that she is probably putting a mirror up to him to show him that his brazen attempts to try to subvert our democracy and his attempt to hush, you know, everyone into believing that he did or did not sleep with Stormy Daniels has nothing to do with the fact that this was election interference,” said Wolkoff of what role she believes Melania is playing now.
Melania is usually based at Trump’s Mar-a-Lago estate in Palm Beach, Fla., but sources cited by Page Six said that she was a bit closer to him as the jury verdict arrived. They said she was at Trump Tower in Midtown Manhattan, along with Barron. While the recent high school graduate was selected as a Republican National Convention delegate, Melania’s office announced earlier this month that he would not be accepting the offer.
Trump is expected to be sentenced in the hush money trial on July 11. He faces potential fines and even jail time, though experts told Audacy that a prison sentence is unlikely.
Melania has not been very active in the public eye since Trump announced his current campaign in November 2022. Both Wolkoff and Grisham don’t think we should expect to see her at the sentencing hearing.
“I would be absolutely floored if she showed up, there’s just no way,” said Grisham of whether Melania would show up for the verdict or other dates. She added that, since Melania hadn’t shown up so far, “I think in her mind, she would think that she was caving, or even seen weak if she would show up now.”
If she does show up, Wolkoff said it will be “an art of distraction,” to shine the light away from her husband.