Melania Trump has settled her defamation lawsuit against a Maryland blogger, according to multiple reports.
Webster Griffin Tarpley agreed to pay a “substantial sum” and has issued an apology to Trump, the first lady’s attorneys said, according to a Washington Post report.
“I posted an article on August 2, 2016 about Melania Trump that was replete with false and defamatory statements about her,” Tarpley’s statement says.
“I had no legitimate factual basis to make these false statements and I fully retract them. I acknowledge that these false statements were very harmful and hurtful to Mrs. Trump and her family, and therefore I sincerely apologize to Mrs. Trump, her son, her husband and her parents for making these false statements.”
{mosads}Tarpley last August published allegations that the first lady worked for an escort service in the 1990s and suffered a “nervous breakdown” during the presidential campaign.
Later that month, Tarpley published a formal retraction, saying the initial post referenced “unfounded rumors and innuendo.”
“While the tarpley.net editors, writers and contributors did not generate said rumors, the briefing in question was not diligent in fact-checking or maintaining a healthy distance between innuendo and fact,” the retraction
said.
Trump in September
filed a lawsuit in Maryland against the blogger and the company that publishes the Daily Mail’s website, which also published the story alleging the first lady had been an escort in the 1990s.
A judge earlier this month dismissed the case against the Daily Mail in Maryland on jurisdictional grounds, ruling the lawsuit should not have been filed in the state. Mail Media Inc. has corporate offices in New York,
according to
multiple reports. The first lady earlier this month
re-filed the $150 million libel lawsuit against the Daily Mail in New York.
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