Melania Trump’s ex-adviser says she taped calls for protection

A former buddy and adviser of Melania Trump stated Tuesday that she made recordings of her conversations with the primary woman as a result of she wanted proof to offer protection to herself amid questions concerning the prices of President Donald Trump’s inauguration.

Stephanie Winston Wolkoff, whose guide “Melania and Me: The Upward thrust and Fall of My Friendship with the First Woman,” was once launched this week, helped produce Trump’s inauguration and later labored for the primary woman as an unpaid White Area adviser.

Wolkoff left the White Area in February 2018 when her contract was once terminated. The White Area blasted the guide as “stuffed with mistruths and paranoia.”

One after the other, Wolkoff informed The Washington Put up that Mrs. Trump used non-public e mail accounts whilst on the White Area. Others within the White Area, together with Trump’s daughter Ivanka and her husband, Jared Kushner, had been criticized for doing legit industry on non-public accounts – however, not like them, the primary woman isn’t a central authority worker.

In an interview on MSNBC’s “The Rachel Maddow Display,” Wolkoff stated, “I have been accused of taping my buddy, because the White Area stated, and the way terrible of a human being I’m for doing that.”

“And they are proper. If she was once my buddy, it will be terrible. However Melania and the White Area had accused me of illegal activity and publicly shamed and fired me and made me their scapegoat,” Wolkoff stated. “At that second in time, that is after I pressed document. She was once not my buddy and she or he was once prepared to allow them to take me down.”

Wolkoff stated Melania Trump informed her that White Area lawyers claimed there was once no different selection however to show her again on her buddy as a result of there was once a conceivable probe of the presidential inauguration committee. Wolkoff stated she taped the primary woman as a result of “I used to be going to do anything else in my energy to make certain that I used to be safe.”

Stephanie Grisham, leader of group of workers and spokesperson for Melania Trump, stated Wolkoff was once out for revenge.

“Anyone who secretly tapes their self-described easiest buddy is, through definition, cheating,” Grisham stated.

“The guide isn’t just stuffed with mistruths and paranoia, it’s in line with some imagined want for revenge. Wolkoff builds herself up whilst belittling and blaming everybody she labored with, but she nonetheless controlled to be the sufferer. Unfortunately, it is a deeply insecure girl who is want to be related defies good judgment.”

Within the guide, Wolkoff says she needed she had by no means met the primary woman, who’s a former type type. Wolkoff, a New York-based tournament planner, stated the pair first met in 2003 within the hallways of Trend mag, the place Wolkoff labored.

Wolkoff devotes two of the guide’s 11 chapters to making plans for the January 2017 inauguration, describing the committee accountable for elevating cash to pay for a number of days of occasions as beset with organizational and communications problems that difficult her paintings.

She says she again and again raised questions on spending however she in the end got here to be seen as the issue. Trump’s Presidential Inaugural Committee raised just about $107 million for the lavish tournament, an unparalleled inaugural price ticket just about two times that of President Barack Obama’s inauguration in 2009.

A few of the ones all in favour of or acutely aware of the committee’s paintings informed The Related Press in September 2017 that the orchestration of the inauguration was once marred through last-minute choices, staffing turnover and little monetary oversight.

Wolkoff informed ABC Information in an interview broadcast Monday that she continues to cooperate with more than one felony investigations into the committee’s operations.