First lady Melania Trump used a private email account linked to the Trump Organization from a MelaniaTrump.com email domain while in the White House, a former friend of hers told The Washington Post.
Stephanie Winston Wolkoff, a close friend and former adviser, who is coming out with her tell-all memoir, “Melania and Me: The Rise and Fall of My Friendship with the First Lady,” told the Post in an interview published Tuesday night that she and Trump corresponded multiple times a day.
“Melania and I both didn’t use White House emails,” she said.
In messages viewed by the Post that were sent from private email and messaging accounts, Trump discussed government hires and contracts, schedules for her and the president, her Be Best initiative, the Easter egg roll and finances for the presidential inauguration.
The first lady is just the latest White House official to draw scrutiny over the alleged use of a private email. Both Ivanka Trump and Jared Kushner, the president’s daughter and son-in-law, respectively, who are both senior staffers, were investigated for their use of private accounts for government business, and Commerce Secretary Wilbur Ross was also found to have used private email for government business.
The news comes years after then-candidate Donald Trump and the GOP during the 2016 election pointed to the FBI investigation into Hillary Clinton’s decision to use a private email server while she served as secretary of State. Trump accused her of crimes “worse than Watergate.”