Melania tweaks $150m defamation suit after criticism over ‘brand’ claims

New York, Feb. 23: In what comes as a development of the US First Lady Melania Trump’s $150 million defamation lawsuit against a British media outlet, her lawyers have changed and refiled it, which leaves out a controversial portion of the original, a section that argued the First Lady’s earning potential as a brand spokeswoman would be irretrievably damaged by the defamation.

According to CNN, the new version of the lawsuit came after critics questioned whether Ms Trump would be attempting to cash in on her high-profile status as the First Lady of the United States.

For the unversed, Ms Trump is suing the Daily Mail Online for publishing a story alleged that her catwalk career was a “ruse” and said she was actually an escort in the “sex business”.

“The First Lady has no intention of using her position for profit and will not do so. It is not a possibility. Any statement to the contrary are being misinterpreted,” CNN quoted Ms Trump’s lawyer Charles Harder as saying.

According to the filing, “As a direct result of Mail Online’s actions, the plaintiff has suffered emotional distress and is entitled to compensatory and punitive damages in an amount to be proven at trial and not less than $150 million.”

However, no such comment has still been made by the First Lady’s office on the refiling of the lawsuit.

Ms Trump originally filed her lawsuit against the Daily Mail and Marylandbased political blogger Webster Griffin Tarpley, who runs Tarpley.net, in September last, claiming that she was defamed by what she said were false stories.

After the lawsuit was filed, the Daily Mail published a retraction, saying their article merely discussed allegations that were made about Ms Trump in a book on Amazon and in an article by a Slovenian magazine and did not intend to imply they were true.

But attorneys for the Daily Mail also argued in court documents that the British media company had no ties to the state of Maryland. The MailOnline website is owned and published in the UK, and has a principal office in New York, according to court documents. Ms Trump’s attorneys tried to prove there was a direct connection with Maryland because the website receives 4,600 article views per hour in Maryland and 72,600 unique browsers per day from Maryland.