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First Lady Melania Trump has threatened to sue Hunter Biden for more than $1 billion over his claim that she was introduced to her husband by sex offender Jeffrey Epstein. Biden, son of former US President Joe Biden, made the comments during an interview earlier this month criticizing the president's past ties to Epstein. Lawyers for the first lady, who married President Donald Trump in 2005, called the claim "false, disparaging, defamatory and inflammatory."
Donald Trump was a friend of Epstein, but has said the pair fell out in the early 2000s because the financier had poached employees who worked at the spa in Trump's Florida golf club.
A letter from the first lady's lawyers and addressed to an attorney for Hunter Biden demands he retract the claim and apologise, or face legal action for "over $1bn in damages".
It says the first lady has suffered "overwhelming financial and reputational harm" because of the claim he repeated. It also accuses the youngest Biden son of having a "vast history of trading on the names of others", and repeating the claim "to draw attention to yourself".
During a wide-ranging interview with filmmaker Andrew Callaghan published earlier this month, Hunter Biden claimed unreleased documents relating to Epstein would "implicate" President Trump.
He said: "Epstein introduced Melania to Trump - the connections are so wide and deep." The first lady's legal letter notes the claim was partially attributed to Michael Wolff, a journalist who authored a critical biography of the president.
Before being re-elected, Trump said he would release the records if he returned to office, but the FBI and justice department said in July that no "incriminating" client list of Epstein associates existed.
In a recent interview with US outlet the Daily Beast, Wolff reportedly claimed that the first lady was known to an associate of Epstein and Trump when she met her now-husband. The outlet later retracted the story after receiving a letter from the first lady's attorney that challenged the contents and framing of the story.
There is no evidence the pair were introduced to each other by Epstein, who took his own life in prison while awaiting trial in 2019.
