Melania Trump’s former aide Stephanie Winston Wolkoff has warned that betrayal is “the norm” in the Trump family.
Winston Wolkoff, whose relationship with the former first lady’s family deteriorated over a controversy surrounding his 2017 inauguration, addressed the Trump family’s “loyalty” in a post to X (formerly Twitter) Monday afternoon.
“BETRAYAL is the norm in Trump World – even to FAMILY. As soon as you raise the alarm about their nefarious activities they make sure to cast you in an unflattering light & GAG you from speaking the truth with false accusations, non-disclosure agreements, & subpoenas,” Winston Wolkoff wrote.
In 2020, Winston Wolkoff published a book titled Melania and Me that detailed her 15-year friendship with the former first lady as well as her departure from the Trump White House. She has since become an outspoken critic of both Donald Trump and his wife.
Her warning on X was in response to a profile in The Nation about Jennifer Weisselberg, the former daughter-in-law of longtime Trump Organization Chief Financial Officer Allen Weisselberg.
Jennifer Weisselberg provided documents to prosecutors as part of investigations into business fraud allegedly committed by the Trump Organization, according to The Nation‘s story. She gave them information about untaxed corporate perks that helped in the case against Allen Weisselberg, who pleaded guilty to 15 counts of fraud and tax evasion.
Newsweek reached out to the Trump campaign via email for comment. Newsweek also reached out to Winston Wolkoff, via her Instagram account, for further comment.
Last December, a jury found the Trump Organization guilty of 17 counts related to tax fraud, conspiracy and falsifying business records. This trial was separate from Trump’s ongoing civil fraud trial in New York, in which he is accused of inflating his net worth by billions of dollars on financial statements to banks and insurers in order to secure better loans and other financial benefits. The former president has denied any wrongdoing.
The Weisselbergs allegedly launched a “semi-public campaign to depict” Jennifer Weisselberg as an “unfit mother” by neglecting her children and failing to pay her rent, The Nation‘s Joan Walsh wrote in the profile, headlined “Unmarried to the Mob.”
Winston Wolkoff has similarly described her treatment by members of the Trump world following her 2018 departure from the White House. In addition to her X post responding to Walsh’s article, she reshared a post from July in which she wrote about the Trumps’ alleged “gaslighting.”
“Gaslighting & Deflection is part of the Trump Playbook. @MELANIATRUMP is the QUEEN of BETRAYAL, DECEIT, LIES & GRIFT so the irony that Melania is maintaining a low profile because ‘SHE’ feels ‘betrayed & disappointed by some friends, aides, & family members’ is BS,” she wrote.
Winston Wolkoff left the White House in February 2018 after it was reported that a company she founded received $26 million for its role in Trump’s inauguration and that she personally received $1.6 million. She disputed the allegations in a 2019 statement to The New York Times, writing that she was neither fired nor received the amount of money in question.
I know little people locally around here with rich friends and relatives and they, also, are jealous of and angry about the success of their successful friends/relatives… I try to calm them down and make them see reason… but it’s difficult… I can’t really relate to them as I’m happy for the successful people I know… and glad Good Donald Trump is risking his life and reputation and business interests to fix our corrupted USA as much as he can…
Friends will backstab you for money, as well as non friends. All I know is, our country was in a much better state under Trump than it is now