A New York state magistrate has just sealed the door on Manhattan District Attorney Alvin Bragg’s desire to examine Melania Trump’s emails.
According to CBS News, New York State Supreme Court Judge Juan Merchan denied Bragg’s request to review correspondence between former Trump executive assistant Rhona Graff and former first lady Melania Trump. Merchan discovered that the scope of Bragg’s subpoena was excessive.
CBS reports that Merchan also blocked a subpoena for emails between Trump Organization employees and White House officials, more than two years of the former president’s travel itineraries, and emails from Graff to Keith Schiller, the former director of White House operations.
“This request would yield significantly more responsive records than necessary,” Merchan wrote concerning Bragg’s effort to read Melania Trump’s emails.
As part of Bragg’s effort to convict Trump of falsifying business records in 2016, Bragg desires to obtain Trump’s full, videotaped deposition in the federal lawsuit filed by former advice columnist E. Jean Carroll, who accused Trump of rape and defamation.
Merchan did not object to the subpoena, but stated that a federal magistrate must decide the matter.
According to The New York Times, the former first lady currently leads a private existence.
“From her point of view and her friends’ point of view, she’s been through a lot and she’s come out a strong independent woman,” said R. Couri Hay, a publicist, who knew Melania Trump before her White House days, told the Times= in an article published Wednesday.
“She’s learned how to close the door and close the shutters and remain private. We don’t see a lot, we don’t hear a lot,” he said.
Former Trump aide Kellyanne Conway said Melania Trump is “all in” on the former president’s campaign. She is the former president’s “most trusted and most transparent adviser,” Conway said.
“I know few people as comfortable in their skin as Melania Trump. She knows who she is and keeps her priorities in check. Melania keeps them guessing, and they keep guessing wrong,” Conway the Times.
My First Lady Melania Trump 🇺🇸 pic.twitter.com/8N0DzCx8cD
— The TRUMP PAGE 🇺🇸 (@MichaelDeLauzon) July 21, 2023
Kate Andersen Brower, author of “First Women: The Grace and Power of America’s Modern First Ladies,” said Melania Trump is quite content to live on her own terms.
“She’s the most obviously unknowable first lady,” Brower said.
“There’s something radical about it. First ladies are expected to want to please people and I’m not sure she really cares.”
According to The Hill, the former president said it was difficult to inform his wife of the charges against him during an interview on Friday.
“It’s always unpleasant when you have to go in and tell your wife that, ‘By the way, tomorrow sometime I’m going to be indicted,’” he said during “The John Fredericks Show.”
“And she says, ‘For what?’ And I say, ‘I have no idea. I have absolutely no idea,’” he said.