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Brian Lehrer: It's The Brian Lehrer Show on WNYC. Good morning again, everyone. Well, it's been a while since the Jeffrey Epstein story was front and center in the headlines. Many have, jokingly or not, speculated that President Trump launched the war with Iran to deflect from the persistent attention on his ties to the billionaire pedophile. Last week, First Lady Melania Trump brought new attention to the case with a surprise statement about her own name in the Epstein files. Now, some people are asking, jokingly or not, if things have come full circle. Did Melania bring the focus back to Epstein to distract Americans from the war? Here's part of her statement.

First Lady Melania Trump: The lies linking me with the disgraceful Jeffrey Epstein need to end today. The individuals lying about me are devoid of ethical standards, humility, and respect. I do not object to their ignorance, but rather I reject their mean spirited attempts to defame my reputation. I never been friends with Epstein. Donald and I were invited to the same parties as Epstein from time to time, since overlapping in social circles is common in New York City and Palm Beach. To be clear, I never had a relationship with Epstein or his accomplice, Maxwell. My email reply to Maxwell cannot be categorized as anything more than casual correspondence. My polite reply to her email doesn't amount to anything more than a tribal note. I am not Epstein's victim. Epstein did not introduce me to Donald Trump.

Brian Lehrer: That was First Lady Melania Trump speaking to the press on Thursday. She did not take any questions after that. In a phone conversation with a reporter from The New York Times, President Trump shared that he knew Melania wanted to talk about Epstein, but "didn't know what the statement was and is unbothered by her speaking out." The questions that remain are why and why now?

With me to try to answer those questions is Vicky Ward, investigative journalist, host of the Chasing Ghislaine podcast, and author of books including Kushner, Inc, and with James Patterson, The Idaho Four: An American Tragedy. Vicky, we always appreciate when you come on to talk about your reporting on the Epstein story. Welcome back to WNYC.

Vicky Ward: Thanks for having me, Brian.

Brian Lehrer: You've been covering Jeffrey Epstein for decades. What was your initial reaction to this statement from the first lady last week?

Vicky Ward: Initially, Brian, I was just baffled, frankly, wondering why on earth she was coming out saying this at all, but why she was coming out saying it now, because nobody in all my decades of reporting on Jeffrey Epstein has ever suggested to me that Melania Trump was a victim of Jeffrey Epstein. Nobody has ever suggested to me that Jeffrey Epstein introduced her to Donald Trump, not least, because I've known since 2002 who introduced Melania Trump to Donald Trump, Melania Knauss she then was. That man is Paolo Zampolli, who had a modeling agency.

He was a good friend of Jeffrey Epstein's and Donald Trump's, and he is the person who links all these people together. I was very, very surprised at what she said, and she was clearly very emotional when she said it. You could hear her voice shaking just then, so it felt like something had set her off. The question, of course, is what?

Brian Lehrer: You went right to those last two sentences from the clip that we played, "I am not Epstein's victim. Epstein did not introduce me to Donald Trump," but I think I hear you saying, "Nobody really suspected that she was an Epstein victim or that Epstein introduced her to Donald Trump. Why would she come out and deny something that nobody was accusing anybody of?"

Vicky Ward: Right. I think it is worth pointing out something that probably doesn't get talked about enough, which is that we know how Donald Trump is a master of controlling the narrative, that he prides himself on this, and he is very, very good at it, which is why, as you mentioned, people started joking and saying, "Is this an attempt to switch the narrative away from what's going on in Iran?" and the other way around, that, "Did Trump go to war with Iran in order to get everyone stop talking about Epstein?"

Melania Trump has been very, very, very quick to control the narrative about her as well. This has gone back, actually, years and years at this point. She has been very quick to sue publications, particularly publications abroad in my native country, Britain, where the libel laws are different from the ones here. She hates it when journalists delve into her history, particularly her history before she met Donald Trump, when she was a model in New York.

There have been all sorts of rumors and speculation as to who she dated. Everyone knows the modeling world in New York can be very seedy, and she has been very quick to shut down uncorroborated allegations about that time. I think it is worth noting, Brian, that last week a book was published by HarperCollins in the UK by a writer called Andrew Lownie, and it did have allegations in it about Melania Trump and Jeffrey Epstein, which I understand have been withdrawn, at least from the printed copies.

Brian Lehrer: Go ahead. You want to finish the thought? Go ahead.

Vicky Ward: It did feel to me when she came out and she was so emotional that something had suddenly set her off. I then phoned around my Trump circle sources, and they told me there had been stuff bubbling up on TikTok last week, but if there was, it's extraordinary that many, many journalists did not see it. Then, of course, there is this other story running in parallel that has to do with the man who did introduce Melania to her husband, and that is Paolo Zampolli. There is this extraordinary story running in parallel where the mother of Paolo Zampolli's child, a Brazilian model called Amanda Ungaro, did come out on her social media last week, threatening Melania Trump directly and saying, "I've known you for 20 years and I'm not afraid to expose you and the corruption in this administration." I'm paraphrasing. That is because the [unintelligible 00:08:48]-

Brian Lehrer: I see part of the quote here from Amanda Ungaro says that Melania should "be afraid of what I know."

Vicky Ward: Why, of course, that is very interesting, Amanda Ungaro does have nothing to lose at this point. What's happened to her, as has been reported, is horrendous, frankly. This is a Brazilian model who was flown to New York from Paris, it's unclear if she was 17 or 16 at the time, in 2002, on Jeffrey Epstein's plane. She has told a French newspaper Ghislaine Maxwell was also there, along with other 30 or so other young models.

She then is introduced to Paolo Zampolli and becomes his girlfriend for the next 20 years. She and he are very close socially with Melania and Donald Trump until very, very recently. They both get positions in the first Trump administration. Paolo Zampolli is made the ambassador to the UN, I think, for Dominica, and she is made ambassador to the UN for Granada.

It all appears to go wrong a couple of years ago when she and Paolo Zampolli split up and she moves to Miami and marries somebody there, a plastic surgeon, and they run a medical beauty spa together. Last summer, suddenly they both get arrested for fraud. Her husband has a green card but is not a citizen. Then the next thing she knows is that she's moved from prison by ICE to a detention facility and is ultimately, after three months, I think, in detention, sent back to Brazil.

This is all because she believes she was in the middle of a horrendous custody battle over her child, who's now, I think, 15 or 16, with Paolo Zampolli. She's basically said that Paolo Zampolli used his proximity to the Trumps, his place in the administration, to carry out a personal vendetta against her, and he directly asked somebody at ICE to get her deported.

Brian Lehrer: There's the possible connection to politics and to Melania and the Jeffrey Epstein story of that family's intrigue. Paolo Zampolli, who's still tight with Trump, uses his connection to get ICE to deport his ex-wife or ex-girlfriend, Amanda Ungaro, uses his connections to get ICE to detain and deport her in the middle of this custody battle. Then she turns around and posts that "Melania should be very afraid of what I know," so then Melania comes out with this big denial, out of the blue, of having any kind of relationship that's at all problematic with Jeffrey Epstein world.

President Trump, though, has repeatedly called the Epstein files a hoax and pushed to move on, but Melania seemed to be pulling in the opposite direction. Here she is calling for the victims to receive new congressional hearings.

First Lady Melania Trump: Now is the time for Congress to act. Epstein was not alone. Several prominent mill executives resigned from their powerful positions after this matter became widely politicized. Of course, this doesn't amount to guilt, but we still must work openly and transparently to uncover the truth. I call on Congress to provide the women who have been victimized by Epstein with a public hearing specifically centered around the survivors.

Give these victims their opportunity to testify under oath in front of Congress with the power of sworn testimony. Each and every woman should have her day to tell her story in public if she wishes, and then her testimony should be permanently entered into the congressional record. Then and only then, we will have the truth.

Brian Lehrer: We only have about a minute left in the segment. What do you make of Melania calling for congressional hearings for the victims? Is that a genuine push for accountability? Do you think she would have had to do that over the objections of her husband, the president, who probably wants more congressional hearings like he wants a hole in his head?

Vicky Ward: It is a stark contrast, right, Brian, with her husband. These survivors, these women have been so vocal standing up there on Capitol Hill, and they've been very effective. Ultimately, it is their voices that have caused Congress, almost unanimously, to pass the Epstein Transparency Act. Every time they were on Capitol Hill, it was extraordinary. I always noticed Donald Trump was having a press conference about something else and refused to even acknowledge them.

It is extraordinary that Melania Trump is suddenly coming forward and asking for this. My immediate reaction to that was where was she a year ago? Has she been under a rock all this time? I guess better late than never. I know that some of the survivors have welcomed what she says, but they've also asked to make sure that none of us in Congress particularly doesn't get distracted by all this.

Let us not forget that Pam Bondi, who's just been fired as the head of the Justice Department, has a lot to answer for about the mishandling of the Epstein files rollout and how actually the rollout has really harmed a lot of survivors rather than helping them. She was meant to appear before Congress, I think, yesterday, and because she was fired, she's been let off the hook. I think it's important that Congress keep banging on the drum and urge her, press her to come back regardless. I think that there are some good things about what Melania Trump did, although the timing of it is curious, but we have to remember to put it in context of the bigger picture here.

Brian Lehrer: Vicky Ward, investigative journalist, host of the Chasing Ghislaine podcast, and author of books, including her latest with James Patterson, The Idaho Four: An American Tragedy. Thanks, as always, for coming on with us.

Vicky Ward: Thank you for having me, Brian.

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