Analysis: Melania Trump tried to sweep the Epstein saga away, but she ended up reviving it | CNN Politics

The most plausible explanation for first lady Melania Trump’s out-of-the-blue address on the Jeffrey Epstein drama was that she was trying to make it go away. But her stunning on-camera statement Thursday from the White House Cross Hall — the spot where her husband last week spoke to the nation about the Iran war — will almost certainly have the opposite effect. “I am not Epstein’s victim. Epstein did not introduce me to Donald Trump,” she said, in a statement that was all the more remarkable since there had been no widespread public speculation about the matter in recent days. Trump said she had never been friends with Epstein, but that she and her then-boyfriend Donald Trump sometimes encountered him in social circles in New York and Florida. “The lies linking me with the disgraceful Jeffrey Epstein need to end today,” the first lady said, although she didn’t point to specific allegations. The optics were of a first lady fed up with reports and speculation she believes falsely link her to Epstein. But she was not speaking in a vacuum. Her personal position is complicated by her proximity to her husband, who leads an administration accused by Epstein victims of s