By Bo Erickson
WASHINGTON, April 9 (Reuters) - First lady Melania Trump on Thursday denied having any relationship with disgraced financier and sex offender Jeffrey Epstein, reviving a highly sensitive issue that her husband has repeatedly sought to downplay.
She denied online speculation that Epstein had introduced her to Donald Trump, saying she met her husband at a New York City party in 1998. "I am not Epstein’s victim," she said. She also urged Congress to provide public hearings for Epstein victims to tell their stories under oath.
"The lies linking me with the disgraceful Jeffrey Epstein need to end today," Melania Trump said, reading a statement and declining to take questions from reporters.
The extraordinary address, delivered beneath the presidential seal in the White House foyer, brings renewed scrutiny to the Epstein case, which has roiled Trump's presidency as his supporters accuse his administration of mishandling disclosures from government files.
Trump last week fired his attorney general, Pam Bondi, a particular target of ire for Trump loyalists after the Justice Department slow-walked the release of millions of files related to Epstein.
Trump, a onetime friend of Epstein who said he cut ties with the financier in the early 2000s, is among many famous people - celebrities, politicians and intellectuals - named in the government files.
Melania Trump did not say why she chose to speak out on Thursday, as the Epstein saga had largely receded from the headlines amid the U.S.-Israeli war against Iran.
But Marc Beckman, her senior adviser, told Reuters in a statement: “First Lady Melania Trump spoke out now because enough is enough. The lies must stop."
The first lady said she had never had a relationship with Epstein or his associate Ghislaine Maxwell, with whom she said she had only a casual correspondence.
She said she first "crossed paths" with Epstein in 2000 at an event she attended with her husband.
"At the time, I had never met Epstein and had no knowledge of his criminal undertakings," she said.
Epstein, a convicted sex offender, was facing federal charges of sex-trafficking minors when he died in jail in 2019 in what was ruled a suicide.
"I have 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," she said.
"To be clear, I never had a relationship with Epstein or his accomplice, Maxwell ... I am not Epstein’s victim. Epstein did not introduce me to Donald Trump. I met my husband, by chance, at a New York City party in 1998," she said.
The first lady sidestepped a question about the victims of Maxwell at an event earlier this year with former captives of Hamas in Gaza.
The president, who has been consumed in recent weeks by the war in Iran, has for months tried to move past discussions about Epstein. "I think it's really time for the country to get on to something else, really, now that nothing came out about me," Trump said in February when asked about the Epstein victims' reactions to how the Justice Department files were released. RELEASE OF THE FILES The Trump administration, under pressure from Trump's political base, ordered the U.S. Justice Department to release files tied to criminal probes of Epstein in compliance with a transparency law passed by Congress. The files include a 2002 email from Melania Trump to Maxwell about a New York Magazine piece on Epstein. "Nice story about JE in NY mag. You look great on the picture," the email says. "Give me a call when you are back in NY." Melania Trump on Thursday described her email to Maxwell as just "casual correspondence," adding: "My polite reply to her email doesn’t amount to anything more than a trivial note." A Reuters/Ipsos poll in January showed only 21% of respondents approved of Trump's handling of the Epstein files. A separate Reuters/Ipsos poll in February showed three quarters of Americans - including two-thirds of Republicans - believe the federal government is hiding information about the alleged clients of Epstein. President Trump has said he was never aware of the financier's sexual abuse. Records previously released by the department show Trump flew several times on Epstein's plane in the 1990s, which Trump has denied. After Epstein was first accused of sexual misconduct, Trump called the police chief in Palm Beach to say that "everyone has known he's been doing this," according to an FBI interview record.
(Reporting by Bo Erickson and Jasper Ward, writing by Doina Chiacu, Michelle Nichols and Daniel Trotta; Editing by Scott Malone, Ross Colvin and Alistair Bell)
