Blogger Retracts “Escort” Statements About Melania Trump, Settles Suit

Variety reports that Melania Trump has come to a settlement with Maryland blogger Webster Tarpley who alleged that she had worked as an escort. Mr. Tarpley acknowledged that his writing was defamatory, according to the Variety article, saying that “I had no legitimate factual basis to make these false statements about her.’

Ms. Trump had also sued the Daily Mail’s parent company in a Maryland court over reports that similar reports derived from a Slovenian magazine that she worked as an escort but a judge dismissed that suit earlier this year. Ms. Trump refiled that suit in a New York state court earlier this week.  She has also sued the journalist who wrote the article in Suzy magazine.

More about the original Daily Mail lawsuit, and the reports emanating from the Slovenian magazine, Suzy, here, from a Washington Post article published in October 2016. WaPo notes that the Daily Mail was “skeptical of the escort claim.”