A federal judge in Manhattan has thrown out author Michael Wolff’s lawsuit against First Lady Melania Trump, concluding that he asked the court to decide a defamation fight before it had even been filed.
In a 45-page opinion dated May 22, 2026, U.S. District Judge Mary Kay Vyskocil of the Southern District of New York said she had jurisdiction because the parties are citizens of different states and the threatened claim was large enough to meet the federal amount-in-controversy requirement. She declined to use that jurisdiction. The dispute, she wrote, had to proceed “according to the same procedures as everyone else.”
Wolff, known for critical books about the Trump family, had publicly linked Melania Trump to the late financier Jeffrey Epstein. Her lawyer, Alejandro Brito, then sent a demand letter seeking a retraction and warning of a potential lawsuit for substantial damages—reported as $1 billion. Rather than wait to be sued, Wolff filed first in New York state court. He sought a declaratory judgment that his remarks were protected speech or had been misread, and he invoked New York’s anti-SLAPP law, which is meant to deter lawsuits used to silence critics. The case was later removed to federal court.
Judge Vyskocil described the filing as a “contorted” and “preemptive” effort. “Plaintiff asks for a declaration that, if the First Lady sues him, he deserves to win,” she wrote. “That is not how the federal courts work.” She also criticized what she called an “inappropriate level of tactical gamesmanship,” including forum shopping aimed at New York rather than Florida, where Melania Trump maintains her primary residence and where her lawyers had pointed. The court, she said, would “not be conscripted to oversee an abusively presented spat.” The ruling did not decide whether Wolff’s statements were defamatory.
Melania Trump has denied any association with Epstein or Ghislaine Maxwell, saying she never visited Epstein’s island, never flew on his plane, and knew nothing of his crimes. A spokesperson for the first lady welcomed the dismissal. Wolff has stood by his reporting and framed the fight as one about press freedom and the Trump family’s use of litigation to chill critics. He later appealed.
The decision is procedural, not a verdict on the underlying claims. It leaves Melania Trump free to pursue a defamation case in an ordinary forum and leaves Wolff to defend himself there, rather than through a preemptive declaration in New York federal court. The episode is a reminder that high-profile speech disputes still have to follow the usual sequence: a demand, a lawsuit if one is filed, and then a ruling on the merits—not a request that a judge preview who would win.
