‘Jeffrey Epstein didn’t introduce Melania to Trump. I did’

 Paolo Zampolli, a former model scout, offers to testify in Congress after the first lady’s surprise White House statement denying links to the late sex offender

Donald and Melania Trump with Paolo Zampolli at Mar-a-Lago in December 2016, after Trump’s first election victory

A Trump administration official and former model scout has offered to testify before Congress that it was he, not Jeffrey Epstein, who introduced Melania Knauss to Donald Trump.

Paolo Zampolli, appointed last year by the president to be special representative for global partnerships at the United Nations, said reports that the first couple were introduced by the late sex offender were “totally nonsense”.

“She has nothing to do with this criminal Epstein,” Zampolli, an Italian-American dual citizen, told Sky News on Friday. “I am willing to testify in front of Congress if I am asked and say the truth.”

The House oversight committee has subpoenaed a number of Epstein associates to appear before them to answer questions about what they knew of his sex-trafficking ring.

Melania Trump made a surprise statement on Thursday denying any knowledge of Epstein’s abuse, or that she was his victim.

The first lady’s on-camera remarks at the White House were not scheduled and marked an extraordinary intervention in a scandal that has long haunted her husband.

“The lies linking me with the disgraceful Jeffrey Epstein need to end today,” she said. “The individuals lying about me are devoid of ethical standards, humility and respect.”

Mr Trump told MSNow in an interview after her remarks that he did not “know anything about” the media conference.

The intervention also came on the eve of the anticipated publication of an interview that Zampolli’s former girlfriend Amanda Ungaro, a Brazilian model and former friend of Mrs Trump’s, gave to the Spanish newspaper El País. It is unclear if Ungaro discussed Epstein or Mrs Trump.

Ungaro has claimed Zampolli asked Immigration and Customs Enforcement to detain her in the midst of a custody battle for their son. Zampolli denied this to The New York Times.

Amanda Ungaro with Zampolli in 2019BEN GABBE/Getty IMAGESThey posed with the Trumps for a photograph posted on Instagram

Mrs Trump’s team has said the true story of how she met Trump is featured in her 2024 memoir, Melania.

 The Slovenian-born first lady has said that Zampolli, who was running the modelling agency that brought her to the United States and was a friend of Trump, then a New York real-estate mogul, introduced them at a party he was hosting at the Kit Kat Club during the city’s fashion week in 1998. She was 28 at the time and he was 52.

Zampolli ran ID Model Management at the time and was said to have planned to purchase Elite Model Management with Epstein but the deal never went through. Zampolli’s name appears several times in documents related to the Epstein investigation, though he is not accused of wrongdoing.

He told The New York Times last month that he did not have a close relationship with Epstein. “At least I was included, because if you’re not on the list, you’re a loser, right?” he said.

It was not clear why Mrs Trump decided to give the public statement, and she did not detail any specific allegations about her and the financier. The Trumps had previously been photographed with Epstein, but she said that she had met her husband independently two years before meeting Epstein.

“I’ve never been friends with Epstein. Donald and I were invited to the same parties as Epstein from time to time, since overlapping in social circles is common in New York City and Palm Beach,” Mrs Trump said on Thursday. “To be clear, I never had a relationship with Epstein or his accomplice, [Ghislaine] Maxwell.”

In one email included in the so-called Epstein files, released in late January, Melania is seen messaging with Maxwell, writing: “I know you are very busy flying all over the world. How was Palm Beach? I cannot wait to go down. Give me a call when you are back in NY. Have a great time!” She signs off “Love, Melania!”

In another document, an assistant to Epstein appears to tell the FBI that “Epstein had introduced Donald to Melania”, without elaborating.

Mrs Trump’s legal team threatened a $1 billion defamation suit against the author Michael Wolff, demanding a retraction and apology for statements alleging she was introduced to her husband by Epstein.

Wolff sued Mrs Trump last October, alleging the threat was designed to “harass, intimidate and punish” him for his reporting. Mrs Trump moved to dismiss, claiming improper service. The case is continuing.

The first lady’s White House address was not without precedent. In the run-up to the 2024 presidential election, she released a statement discussing her former modelling career in which she compared her nude photoshoots to the high-art depiction of the nude form in Michelangelo’s David and John Collier’s Lady Godiva.

Mrs Trump, who was discovered by a photographer in her hometown in Slovenia aged 16, posed nude for a French adult magazine in 1995, and then again on Trump’s private jet for British GQ in 2000. The latter photos resurfaced before the 2016 presidential election, but the media had not given so much as a fleeting reference to them since.

Amid all the rest of the madness, the first lady of the evening held a press conference completely out of the blue yesterday, at which she robotically stumbled through a statement in which she claimed not to have ever had any relationship with Jeffrey Epstein.

She attacked the very many stories linking her to Epstein ( in spite of photos of here eight miles high standing with Epstein ),  denied she had been victimized by Epstein or that he had introduced her to her current husband, and, most curiously, called for public hearings for Epstein’s victims.

Nobody, including the best-connected propagandists inside the right wing scream machine, had any explanation for this development. Mrs. Trump wasn’t reacting to a new story, nor did it appear she was trying to get ahead of something that was about to break, although apparently there’s a book coming out in England next week about the pervert formerly known as Prince Andrew, which contains a quote from Epstein in 2007, in which he said he had carnal knowledge of Melania before she ever met Donald Trump.

So, why doesn’t somebody tells us what’s really going on here?

Which brings us to Amanda Ungaro, a Brazilian former model, and apparently a long-standing close friend of Melania and her family.

Amanda was married to wealthy Trump supporter, Paolo Zampolli, who owned a modeling agency known for bringing in young women from Eastern Europe with dubious visa arrangements. Zampolli is rumored to have secured the original visa for young Melania. He is currently on the new Kennedy Center Board of Trustees.

Monsieur Zampolli, specialist in the provision of spicy Eastern European girls for New York City’s most discerning customers, decided to dump the girl from Ipanema, and launched a vicious custody battle to gain custody of their son. Naturally he enlisted the good offices of his great good friend the president of the United States, as one does, to set ICE goons on Ms. Ungaro. They raided her home, arrested her and her new doctor husband, and eventually deported her to Brazil, after she had spent the last 23 years in this country. (Her husband, who is in the country on a work visa, is continuing to fight his own pending deportation.)

Amanda Ungaro is none too happy about any of this, and she’s currently all over social media, messaging Melania, and informing her in cyber-public that

She is going to tell the world incriminating information about Melania, Trump, and their dealings and corruption. As Amanda puts it, now that she has been deported and stands to lose custody, she has nothing left to lose.

I’m not saying any of this is anywhere near as interesting as HIllary Clinton’s email, but maybe it will somehow become a story anyway.

BUT WAIT — THERE’S MORE — IT’S GETTING BETTER

Pakistan DID NOT propose a cease-fire in Iran.  Trump sent a text to the Pakistani Prime Minister, telling him what to say to make it seem as though Pakistan proposed it.  This was a Trump proposal all the way.

Note the message on the left and the top line:  “Draft – Pakistan’s PM Message on X.”  This clearly means Trump wanted a cease-fire, so, he sent a message to the Pakistanis for them to release to make it look as though they proposed it.

TRUMP CAVED.

I am betting that Trump’s generals and admirals refused to obey his orders to destroy Iran’s culture.

Yes, that’s a picture of Pam Bondi in the trash can.  This photo was taken in an anonymous office at Department of Justice the day after Trump fired her.  I’ll bet this scene was repeated all over the building because, according to many reports, the people at DOJ did not like this ignorant woman to start with.

We are seven months away from the most consequential midterm election in the history of the United States. Meanwhile, we are fighting a war. These are the structural conditions for a coup attempt in which a president tries to nullify elections and take permanent power as a dictator. If we see this, we can stop it, overcome the movement that brought us to this point, and make a turn towards something better.

President Donald Trump and Secretary of State Pete Hegseth are stuck in the logic of escalation, according to which the feeling of defeat today can be reversed by doing the first thing that comes to mind tomorrow. Trump is surrounded by people who are making money from the war; each day of war strengthens a warmongering lobby with personal access to the president.

As the war lengthens, the chance that it will be exploited for a coup attempt increases.

Trump tells us that he is chiefly concerned with the permanence of his own comfort and power (think about ballroom and bunker), much of which he will lose when his party is defeated decisively in the midterms. He regularly declares his intention to meddle in the elections. His party backed a bill which would have turned elections into a sham. Trump wants to increase the defense budget by nearly 50% without any review of what the money is for; this is strategic nonsense, and has to be understood as a payoff for the men who, as he imagines, will help him install a dictatorship. Hegseth is meanwhile purging the highest officer ranks of people of principle.

It is up to us to put two and two together: Trump will seek to exploit the war (or the next one) to alter the elections. We bear responsibility for what comes next.

The eventuality can seem frightening, but Trump’s position is weak. The trick of turning a foreign war into a domestic dictatorship is complicated and difficult. Its success depends on us. If the possibility of such a coup is not anticipated and the variants of the trick are not called out as they emerge, he can succeed. Trump  has attempted one coup — January 2021 — there is no reason to think that he will not try to do so again only this time he has a private army (ICE) and a cowardly Secretary of Defense who will turn the US military against the country’s people.

The biggest, most important story in the world today has several aspects.

2. The President of the United States is a demented, delusional, ignorant, self-centered, failure, angry old man. He wants to rule by decree and thinks his executive orders are law.  He operates through and through with a mob boss mentality.

2. The people around him whose job it is to keep him focused on strategy, policy, the welfare of the United States, and our relationship with the rest of the world are just as venal, amoral, and ignorant as he is.

4. The media is terrified to report that the President is a demented, delusional, angry old man who is unfit for any public office.

4. The Republican Party is happy with him because they are just like him and his advisors: white supremacist, religious zealots, and terrified of Trump.  The Republican Party is a political party so craven and power hungry that they are willing to let a vengeful, senile old man threaten the security of the world order to hold on.  They are more than happy to shred the Constitution, sacrifice the lives of our sons and daughters, kill protestors, kidnap/beat/deport American citizens, starve families, deny healthcare, rip the safety net out from the most vulnerable, pander to a sadistic hate-fueled psychopath, and swim in Trump’s fetid sewer of corruption, deviancy, greed, and bribery so they can hold on to power.

We now are experiencing rule by OLIGARCHS – fabulously wealthy people who control everything for their own profit and benefit, not caring who or what they destroy in the process.  Joe Biden is a case in point.

The billionaires who owned the media made President Biden always look disoriented and confused.  They chose this lie for Americans to believe and to influence the November election to tilt to the republicans.

Now fast forward to today, the current president is showing all the symptoms of a demented mind and NO ONE in the billionaire owned media dares to attack Trump the way they did Biden.