First lady Melania Trump seemed hopeful that if she denounced alleged ties between herself and Jeffrey Epstein, she'd make the issue go away.
Following her rare, impromptu public appearance at a White House podium on Thursday, April 9, blasting what she characterized as "lies" and "false smears" about her connections to the dead disgraced wealth manager, Democrats reiterated calls to haul the first lady to Capitol Hill to testify under oath in their Epstein investigations.
Read more: Melania Trump denies ties to Epstein associate. What do emails show?
"If the First Lady wants to clear her name, she should come before the Oversight Committee and testify under oath," Rep. Suhas Subramanyam, D-Virginia, a member of the committee, posted on X after the news conference. "Otherwise, this is just a shameless book promotion."
It's still unclear to many in Congress and Washington why Melania Trump thrust herself into the never-ending Epstein news cycle this week. However, it drew attention to decades-old emails that resurfaced in the Justice Department's online Epstein files between herself and his associate, Ghislaine Maxwell, who is serving a 20-year federal prison sentence for sex trafficking.
"I never had a relationship with Epstein or his accomplice," Melania Trump said. "My email reply to Maxwell cannot be categorized as anything more than casual correspondence."
Trump senior adviser Marc Beckman said in a statement to USA TODAY that the first lady "spoke out now because enough is enough."
"The lies must stop. It is time for the public and media to focus on her incredible achievements as First Lady,” Beckman said.
While Melania Trump can probably worry less about the threat of a subpoena as long as GOP lawmakers hold the committee gavels in Congress, the midterm elections aren't far away. If the House of Representatives flips to Democratic control, she may not be able to avoid a subpoena next year (as rare as that scenario would be for a first lady). And even with Republicans in charge, other major GOP figures, such as former Attorney General Pam Bondi, haven't been able to avoid bipartisan votes to drag them to the Capitol to talk about Epstein and the Justice Department's bungled compliance with the Epstein Files Transparency Act.
A GOP spokesperson for the House Oversight Committee did not respond to questions about whether the first lady should be deposed in the panel's ongoing Epstein probes. Nancy Mace, R-South Carolina, a member of the committee who voted to subpoena Bondi, has already cast cold water on the prospect of deposing the president's wife.
Asked in a recent CNN interview whether Melania Trump would be a fair witness to call before the committee, she said, "I don't believe so."
Congress members set a bipartisan precedent in their unified response to the Epstein files that could continue to plague President Donald Trump and the first lady after they leave the White House.
