First lady Melania Trump’s quick trip to Mar-a-Lago Thursday cost taxpayers nearly $70,000.
The New York Times reported new details about the first lady’s unannounced jaunt to Palm Beach, including that she was spotted heading to the estate’s spa.
The first lady was reportedly ‘blindsided,’ as the Times put it, by the January 12 Wall Street Journal story that said President Trump’s lawyer had paid off porn star Stormy Daniels before the 2016 election to keep her quiet about an alleged affair.
Melania Trump has been ‘furious’ ever since, the report said.
Tonight will mark the first lady’s first public appearance alongside her husband since January 15, when she returned to the White House with the president and 11-year-old Barron from a different trip to Mar-a-Lago.
First lady Melania Trump (right) was reportedly ‘blindsided’ by the Wall Street Journal report that came out January 12 and said that a lawyer for President Trump (left) paid off a porn star in the last few weeks of the presidential election to keep quiet about an alleged affair
First lady Melania Trump flew to Mar-a-Lago Thursday for spa treatments, which cost taxpayers nearly $70,000, the New York Times found
Stormy Daniels, whose real name is Stephanie Clifford, divulged details about her alleged relationship with Trump during a 2011 interview with In Touch Weekly, which never ran until January 17 of this year. Since then, Melania Trump has only been out in public once
During Monday’s White House Press Briefing Press Secretary Sarah Huckabee Sanders (pictured) said first lady Melania Trump and President Trump’s adult children would all attend Tuesday night’s State of the Union
Melania Trump is photographed at President Trump’s first joint address before Congress a year ago. This year all
At Monday’s White House press briefing, Press Secretary Sarah Huckabee Sanders told DailyMail.com that Melania Trump was slated to go to tonight’s State of the Union speech.
‘In terms of family all of the presidents children, along with the first lady, will be at the State of the Union, with the exclusion of Barron, I don’t believe he will be attending as of right now,’ the White House press secretary said.
Stephanie Grisham, the spokeswoman for the first lady, gave the Times a more tenuous response saying, ‘That is her plan,’ she said.
Last week, the first lady set a precedent for abruptly changing her schedule, announcing Monday that she would no longer fly to Davos, Switzerland, to attend the World Economic Forum with President Trump.
Grisham said because of ‘too many scheduling and logistical issues’ Melania Trump would not be going.
Instead, during Trump’s first day at the conference, his wife made two back-to-back unannounced trips, first to the United States Holocaust Memorial Museum and then to Mar-a-Lago.
First lady Melania Trump visited the United States Holocaust Memorial Museum Thursday, in advance of Saturday’s International Holocaust Remembrance Day
Before tweeting photos of the tour, the first lady hadn’t been photographed in 10 days, during which time a 2011 interview with porn star Stormy Daniels was published by In Touch Weekly detailing her alleged affair with Donald Trump
The White House didn’t invite reporters to the event, only telling the press about the first lady’s trip to the United States Holocaust Memorial Museum Thursday with a tweet. Later, the first lady tweeted three photographs of the excursion
First lady Melania Trump’s spokeswoman Stephanie Grisham made FLOTUS’ trip to the Holocaust museum public. The tour was previously unannounced
The first lady’s spokeswoman Stephanie Grisham tweeted about Melania Trump’s visit to the Holocaust museum on Thursday, but reporters were not invited to tag along
The White House did not invite reporters to cover the first lady’s Holocaust museum tour, nor was the press given any heads up about her travel plans to Florida, which cost taxpayers $64,600, the Times said, citing Department of Defense figures.
The first lady returned to Washington Friday evening, the same day the president returned from Davos.
On Friday, DailyMail.com also reported that the first lady had spent several nights at a posh D.C. hotel since the Daniels’ story broke, part of the swirl of stories about the Trumps’ marriage that the first lady’s spokeswoman smacked down calling them ‘salacious’ and ‘flat-out false.’
But the Times reporting, which came out Tuesday, is in line with DailyMail.com’s report, as Melania Trump has kept a lower profile in recent week than she did for most of last year.
The Journal reported on January 12 that Trump’s lawyer Michael Cohen paid $130,000 to keep Daniels quiet in the weeks just before the 2016 election.
Cohen has denied Trump had a sexual relationship with Daniels, but has not denied making the payment.
Daniels, whose real name is Stephanie Clifford, divulged details about her alleged relationship with Trump during a 2011 interview with In Touch Weekly, which never ran until January 17 of this year.
The adult film actress said she and the billionaire businessman first hooked up in 2006, at a Nevada hotel outside of Lake Tahoe, and continued to see each other through 2007.
In this undated photo, porn star Stormy Daniels (right) is photographed alongside the current president, Donald Trump (left)
Stormy Daniels poses on the red carpet at the Adult Video News Awards in Las Vegas in January 2017
The interview was reportedly conducted along with a lie-detector test.
Before the release of the In Touch Weekly Q&A, several other sources corroborated the details of the story.
Porn star Alana Evans appeared on Megyn Kelly’s portion of the Today show on January 16 and talked about how Daniels called her from Trump’s hotel room, wanting her to come along.
The same day, Slate’s Jacob Weisberg wrote a piece detailing how he had been in touch with Daniels between August and October of 2016.
She detailed her affair with Trump to him, though wanted to be paid for the story, which is something Weisberg’s publication does not do.
She also revealed that, through an intermediary, Trump had offered her money to stay silent.
A pal of Daniels’ later told the Slate writer, after Daniels stopped answering his messages, that she had taken the sum.
Melania Trump and the now-president were married on January 22, 2005, a year and a half before Daniels’ and the president’s first alleged sexual encounter.
Barron Trump was born in March 2006, four months before the now president and Daniels’ first alleged encounter, at a golf outing in July of that year.
And despite marking their 13th wedding anniversary last Monday, neither Trump mentioned the occasion, nor were they seen out together publicly.
The president was, however, dealing with the government shutdown.
The first lady has been relatively quiet on social media too.
On January 20, marking the one-year anniversary of her husband’s inauguration day, the first lady tweeted a photo of herself – sans Trump – being accompanied to the swearing-in ceremony by a military escort.
‘This has been a year filled with many wonderful moments. I’ve enjoyed the people I’ve been lucky enough to meet throughout our great country & the world!’ she wrote.
She tweeted again Thursday, once her tour through the Holocaust museum was done.
‘Thank you @HolocaustMuseum for a powerful & moving tour that honors the millions of innocent lives lost, and educates us on the tragedies and effects of the holocaust,’ the first lady said.