The Daily Mail issued an apology yesterday to US First Lady Melania Trump and agreed to pay damages and costs for publishing an article last year, which claimed she once worked as an escort in the Nineties.
John Kelly, Melania's lawyer, said the Daily Mail's article 'included false and defamatory claims' and 'questioned the nature of her work as a professional model, and republished allegations that she provided services beyond simply modelling'.
In September, Melania filed a lawsuit against the paper for the piece, which was published in August 2016 and entitled: 'Racy photos, and troubling questions about his wife’s past that could derail Trump'. The newspaper issued a retraction, claiming it 'did not intend to state or suggest that these allegations are true', but Melania demanded damages of $150 million.
The Press Assocation has estimated the amount Melania will receive in the agreed settlement will, in fact, be a far smaller sum – under $3 million – although this is has not been confirmed.
In February, Melania caused controversy over the initial wording of her lawsuit, claiming the Daily Mail's article had prevented her from benefitting from 'multi-million dollar business relationships' as 'one of the most photographed women in the world', because it suggested she intended to profit from her position as First Lady, and it called into play obvious ethics questions. The comments were later dropped from the lawsuit, although her lawyers maintained they were 'misinterpreted'.
The recent settlement was announced by the lawyers of both Melania and the Daily Mail in a joint statement yesterday.
'We accept that these allegations about Mrs Trump are not true and we retract and withdraw them,' the Daily Mail wrote in a published apology. 'We apologise to Mrs Trump for any distress that our publication caused her.'
On 9th February, we wrote...
Melania Trump has come under fire for the wording of her refiled lawsuit against the publishers of the Daily Mail online.
The libel case, which she is pursuing for $150 million against the newspaper for publishing false allegations that she worked as a high-end escort in the 1990s, has been refiled claiming that the article will damage her potential ‘multimillion-dollar business relationships’ during a time when she will be ‘one of the most photographed women in the world’.
‘Plaintiff had the unique, once-in-a-lifetime opportunity, as an extremely famous and well-known person, as well as a former professional model and brand spokesperson, and successful businesswoman, to launch a broad-based commercial brand in multiple product categories, each of which could have garnered multi-million dollar business relationships for a multi-year term during which Plaintiff is one of the most photographed women in the world,’ reads the statement.
The phrasing of the lawsuit has prompted concern among ethics watchdogs, including the former chief ethics counsellors to Barack Obama and George W. Bush.
‘The pleading just makes plain what a large group of bipartisan experts have been pointing out, based on the behavior of the entire family. Above all, it’s paterfamilias: The Trumps are using the White House like the Kardashians used reality TV, to build and vastly expand their business enterprises,’ Norman Eisen, former chief ethics counsellor to Barack Obama, told the Associated Press.
‘The White House isn’t a marketing opportunity,’ George W. Bush’s chief ethics lawyer Richard Painter told Slate magazine. ‘We’ve never seen this before. This would be a use of [Trump’s] office, the presidency, for private gain — that is corruption.’
The ethics of Donald Trump’s dual roles as President of the United States and head of a global business empire have previously been questioned, although he has insisted he has distanced himself from involvement the latter since becoming POTUS.
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