Former Melania Trump aide calls First Lady ‘hypocritical’ for hiding Barron’s COVID-19 diagnosis

Melania Trump‘s former aide has called the First Lady and President Donald Trump ‘hypocritical’ for telling Americans how to handle the pandemic, but not revealing that her son Barron had COVID-19 and for failing to wear a mask on some public outings.  

Stephanie Winston Wolkoff said it was a missed opportunity for the president and the first lady to finally connect with the average American, instead it was only Wednesday in an essay from Melania that the country even knew 14-year-old Barron Trump had also contracted coronavirus.

Probed by Chris Cuomo on how Melania could lecture the country about getting on with things amid the pandemic, ‘when she can’t even get her husband’ to follow health experts’ advice, Wolkoff said, ‘Because she doesn’t do it the right way either.’

‘She can do a PSA and wear a mask and tell you that everyone should wear a mask, then the next day she’s visiting a school without a mask on,’ Wolkoff continued. ‘It’s the same contradiction. They’re hypocritical. It doesn’t make any sense.’

Cuomo asked whether her attitude to pandemic PSAs could be compared to that expressed in secretly recorded conversations with Wolkoff where she bemoaned having to front the White House festive season traditions, saying ‘Who gives a f**k about Christmas stuff?’

However Wolkoff dodged answering directly.

‘We’re supposed to look at the two and think Melania is the softer side of Donald, she’s not. She’s just like Donald,’ Wolkoff said, adding that women in children who the Be Best charity frontwoman claims to be an advocate for, need a voice of reason.

She said the president was ‘making a fool of himself’ by dancing in crowds at rallies while people are dying around him.

Wolkoff also spoke out after the Justice Department threatened a lawsuit against her for breaking an NDA to write a tell-all book about her former best friend Melania, commenting: ‘The Department of Justice has turned into the Trump’s own police force, unfortunately.’ 

The Melania and Me: The Rise and Fall of My Friendship with the First Lady author also said she ‘expected nothing less from them’ as she addressed the Trumps ‘wasting taxpayers money’ by potentially suing her over the book.

‘They’ve opened up Pandora’s Box in reference to this contract,’ Wolkoff said about claims she broke an NDA. ‘There’s more to be discovered.’

She added: ‘Law and order – according to Donald Trump, which is actually a racist term, is something that he should not be doing right now.’

Wolkoff explained she started her work in 2016 but didn’t sign an NDA with Melania until August 2017. She said the lawsuit against her has so many false claims in it that weren’t covered by the NDA.

The government asked that any profits Winston Wolkoff might receive from the book and subsequent movie deal or documentaries be set aside into a ‘constructive trust,’ with the money ultimately going to the Treasury Department. 

Published six weeks ago, the book was for a time on the New York Times best seller list. It sells for $16.80 on amazon.com. 

In a lawsuit filed in U.S. District Court in Washington, Justice Department lawyers said Winston Wolkoff, a former aide who fell out with the first lady, failed to submit to government for review a draft of her book, which offers an unflattering portrayal of President Donald Trump’s wife. 

Winston Wolkoff, in a statement issued late on Tuesday, said she had fulfilled all the terms of her agreement with Melania Trump and the confidentiality provisions ended ‘when the White House terminated the agreement.’

‘The president and first lady’s use of the U.S. Department of Justice to silence me is a violation of my First Amendment Rights and a blatant abuse of the government to pursue their own personal interests and goals,’ she said.

She said she had exercised her right of free expression with the publication of her book and ‘I will not be deterred by these bullying tactics.’

The complaint said the Justice Department has jurisdiction in the case because of the first lady’s traditional public role dating back to Martha Washington, wife of the first U.S. president, George Washington.  

‘The United States seeks to hold Ms. Wolkoff to her contractual and fiduciary obligations and to ensure that she is not unjustly enriched by her breach of the duties she freely assumed when she served as an adviser to the first lady,’ said a copy of the complaint seen by Reuters.

It says Winston Wolkoff and Mrs. Trump in August 2017 sealed a ‘Gratuitous Services Agreement’ related to ‘nonpublic, privileged and/or confidential information’ that she might obtain during her service under the agreement.

‘This was a contract with the United States and therefore enforceable by the United States,’ said Justice Department spokeswoman Kerri Kupec.

The government action was similar to Justice Department attempts to stop publication of a book published in June by former Trump national security adviser John Bolton.

Bolton was accused of divulging national security secrets, a charge he denied. Publication went ahead any way and a court battle continues over his book, ‘The Room Where It Happened.’

Winston Wolkoff’s tenure at the White House ended in early 2018 after it was disclosed that her company had received $26 million to help plan Trump’s inauguration in January 2017.