DawgTalkers.net Forums DawgTalk Palus Politicus The Melania Trump Tapes

Ex-advisor: I taped Melania Trump for protection; first lady used personal email

Updated 6:49 AM; Today 6:49 AM
link

By The Associated Press
WASHINGTON (AP) — A former friend and adviser of Melania Trump said Tuesday that she made recordings of her conversations with the first lady because she needed evidence to protect herself amid questions about the costs of President Donald Trump’s inauguration.

Stephanie Winston Wolkoff, whose book “Melania and Me: The Rise and Fall of My Friendship with the First Lady,” was released this week, helped produce Trump’s inauguration and later worked for the first lady as an unpaid White House adviser.

Wolkoff left the White House in February 2018 when her contract was terminated. The White House blasted the book as “full of mistruths and paranoia.”

Separately, Wolkoff told The Washington Post that Mrs. Trump used private email accounts while at the White House. Others in the White House, including Trump’s daughter Ivanka and her husband, Jared Kushner, have been criticized for doing official business on private accounts – but, unlike them, the first lady is not a government employee.

In an interview on MSNBC’s “The Rachel Maddow Show,” Wolkoff said, “I’ve been accused of taping my friend, as the White House said, and how horrible of a human being I am for doing that.”

“And they’re right. If she was my friend, it would be horrible. But Melania and the White House had accused me of criminal activity and publicly shamed and fired me and made me their scapegoat,” Wolkoff said. “At that moment in time, that’s when I pressed record. She was no longer my friend and she was willing to let them take me down.”

Wolkoff said Melania Trump told her that White House attorneys claimed there was no other choice but to turn her back on her friend because there was a possible probe of the presidential inauguration committee. Wolkoff said she taped the first lady because “I was going to do anything in my power to make sure that I was protected.”

Stephanie Grisham, chief of staff and spokesperson for Melania Trump, said Wolkoff was out for revenge.

“Anybody who secretly tapes their self-described best friend is, by definition, dishonest,” Grisham said.

“The book is not only full of mistruths and paranoia, it is based on some imagined need for revenge. Wolkoff builds herself up while belittling and blaming everyone she worked with, yet she still managed to be the victim. Sadly, this is a deeply insecure woman who’s need to be relevant defies logic.”

In the book, Wolkoff says she wished she had never met the first lady, who is a former fashion model. Wolkoff, a New York-based event planner, said the pair first met in 2003 in the hallways of Vogue magazine, where Wolkoff worked.

Wolkoff devotes two of the book’s 11 chapters to planning for the January 2017 inauguration, describing the committee responsible for raising money to pay for several days of events as beset with organizational and communications issues that complicated her work.

She says she repeatedly raised questions about spending but she eventually came to be viewed as the problem. Trump’s Presidential Inaugural Committee raised nearly $107 million for the lavish event, an unprecedented inaugural price tag nearly twice that of President Barack Obama’s inauguration in 2009.

Some of those involved in or aware of the committee’s work told The Associated Press in September 2017 that the orchestration of the inauguration was marred by last-minute decisions, staffing turnover and little financial oversight.

Wolkoff told ABC News in an interview broadcast Monday that she continues to cooperate with multiple criminal investigations into the committee’s operations.

Lol my take away.......she’s cooperating with multiple criminal investigations and the WH isn’t. Typical. One way street.

What are the Melania Trump Tapes? Stephanie Winston Wolkoff Says She Recorded Calls

BY SEREN MORRIS ON 9/2/20 AT 5:49 AM EDT
link

elania Tapes" may exist as Stephanie Winston Wolkoff, a former adviser to the First Lady, Melania Trump, has revealed that she had recorded private conversations between herself and her former best friend.

Winston Wolkoff says that the tapes back up everything in her book Melania and Me: The Rise and Fall of My Friendship with the First Lady, which was published yesterday, on September 1.

The book is the first insider look into Mrs. Trump's life during and before the election and was written by Winston Wolkoff who became friends with Mrs. Trump in 2003 when she was Melania Knauss, the model girlfriend of President Donald Trump.

The "Melania Tapes" have not been released, but Winston Wolkoff claims the tapes back up the claims written in her book.

Melania and Me: The Rise and Fall of My Friendship with the First Lady discusses, among other things, Mrs. Trump's strained relationship with her stepdaughter Ivanka Trump and how Melania refers to Ivanka as "the Princess," and how she did not have "a human reaction" in response to allegations of Trump's affairs and the Access Hollywood tapes in which he talks about sexually assaulting women.

In an interview with ABC on Monday, August 31, Winston Wolkoff told Linsey Davis: "I can back up everything that's in the book, 100 percent," but in response to Davis' question about whether or not there are audiotapes Winston Wolkoff simply repeated that she can back up everything in the book.

On August 25, Mrs. Trump's chief of staff, Stephanie Grisham told MSNBC: "It's really unfortunate to take advantage of somebody's trust like that while being a friend," and on August 31, Grisham told ABC in a statement: "Anybody who secretly tapes their self-described best friend is by definition, dishonest. The book is full of mistruths and paranoia, and clearly based on some imagined need for revenge."

Then, on September 1, Stephanie Winston Wolkoff told MSNBC that she had in fact made audiotapes and that the Melania Tapes exist: "Melania and the White House had accused me of criminal activity, had publicly shamed and fired me, and made me their scapegoat.

"At that moment in time, that's when I pressed record. She was no longer my friend and she was willing to let them take me down and she told me herself that is the way it has to be."

Winston Wolkoff worked in fashion, as the former director of special events at Vogue and former fashion director of Mercedes-Benz New York Fashion Week at Lincoln Center, before working for the Trump administration as an executive producer and chief creative officer for the Trump inauguration and a Trusted Advisor to the first lady.

When local and federal investigators questioned the possible financial crimes committed in connection to Trump's, $104 million inauguration in 2017, headlines suggested that Winston Wolkoff had personally pocketed all or most of the $26 million paid to her firm.

Now, Winston Wolkoff has said that she made the audio recordings, or the so-called Melania Tapes, in an attempt to defend herself against the accusations, as she told MSBC: "I was going to do anything in my power to make sure that I was protected and at first I really did think maybe she would come to my aid, maybe she would tell the truth.

"She turned her back, she did, she folded like a deck of cards and I was shocked when she did it."

"A former friend and adviser of Melania Trump said Tuesday that she made recordings of her conversations with the first lady because she needed evidence to protect herself amid questions about the costs of President Donald Trump’s inauguration."

^ Wait, isn't that illegal?

Depends on the state it occurred in, and in some cases whether it is in person or over the phone.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Telephone_call_recording_laws#United_States

EDIT: DC was not listed on wiki, but it appears to be a one-party recording "state". Thus, it would generally be legal for her to record conversations in the White House without Melania knowing about it.

It is, however, not legal for her to record a conversation that, say, Melania was having with Ivanka, without either of them knowing about it.

https://www.robertreeveslaw.com/blog/washington-record-conversations/

j/c

One thing people try and deny but is 100% true. What people say when they think nobody else is listening is exactly who they are.

The Access Hollywood tape wasn't "locker room talk". It's who Trump is. These tapes will be no different.

I remember reading about her back when there was discussion of misdeeds during the inauguration. I just didn't remember her name because back then, the investigation kinda faded away.

My guess is that it never really faded, but was pushed into the background... I wonder if they got the goods on this woman and she is cooperating with them now.. wonder.

Nope. This was a person to person conversation. Totally legal for one or both of them to hit the record button. Now if a 3rd person was recording their conversation in secret. That would be illegal. All Melania and her baby daddy has now is to discredit Melania’s best friend lol. another trump wives tail hits the fan like a steaming pile of you know what.

Get your popcorn ready.

Damn. I was hoping for swimsuit video tapes.

You might try Pornhub.
There might be vintage footage from Slovenia.

If there was any of that, the dems would have posted it everywhere last election. At best, they found a few almost nudes. The woman was a model, so I expected a few nudes.

Under the pee section.

At the left:

What is that a truth treat? lmao

Nope. It's the left offering toxic bait into the faces of the innocent.

So it's rat trap bait? Ironically fitting. GOPers check in but they don't check out...

You're trying too hard.

Moving on...

Personally speaking, I don't like when people attack women. I don't like when they attack the families of public figures. I am not saying I am right, but I think that human decency should prevail over such guttural attacks.

I know that both sides have done it. Thus, I am not making a stand against the left or right. I don't like when either side does it.

Fight hard. Play to win. But, damn it, display some class and sense of decency.

Be Best!

Come to think of it- you're probably right.

I thought you were a better person than that, clem.

Says the guy who supports a potus who’s a known racist and pathological liar.

seriously, That's what concerns you?

I don't support biden.

We know. That's why he said that.

Surprise- I'm just like everyone else.

Several months ago, I received a PM from another poster who told me how he expected more/better from me, which brings two questions:

1. why am I being held to higher expectations than are others?
2. who are either of you to set the posting standards for a football fansite?

In my life, there is a scant handful of people who are/were qualified to pass judgement on my daily performance: My Parents and my teachers. They are/were qualified because they actually have/had a stake in my development. Neither of you Dawgs paid a gd thing into my development/potential, so I hope you'll understand just how little regard I have for your opinions of me.

Tell you what- let's meet at the 50 yard line: you promise to keep your unmet expectations of me to yourself, and I'll keep on watching you meet my expectations without bothering you about it.

Reciprocity: it's the closest thing to respect you're going to get.

I don't really expect anything from you. Never have. I just thought you were a better person.

why?

whatever would give you that impression?
Was it my halo? My saintly robes?

Because your cool ass poet-warrior-philosopher vibe blows his mind bro... An older, wiser, 'articulate' black man that carries himself with a dignity most can't comprehend... All the while fair to him but being ready to drop reality bombs on his brand of politics... You set a high bar.

Not to mention Clem is BunGeeSus by day.

#facepalm

y'all a mess...