- First Lady Melania Trump attacked her critics on Monday in a statement full of typos, her first public statements since the violent siege of the Capitol last Wednesday by her husband’s supporters.
- She expressed sympathy for the five people who died during or due to the injuries sustained during the rebellion and named each one, including the rebels who tried to overthrow the government.
- She misspelled the name of a rioter killed by the Capitol Police and removed a sentence from her speech last August at the Republican National Convention.
- This is after two of the first lady’s top advisers resigned after the coup attempt.
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First Lady Melania Trump attacked her critics on Monday in a statement full of typos, her first public statements since the violent siege of the Capitol last Wednesday by her husband’s supporters.
She expressed sympathy for the five people who died during or due to the injuries sustained during last Wednesday’s rebellion, including the protesters, and named each individual. She misspelled the name of Ashli Babbitt, a 35-year-old Air Force veteran, who was shot and killed by the Capitol Police while she and others tried to break down a door inside the Capitol building.
The First Lady vaguely condemned the attempted coup, saying she was “disappointed and discouraged by what happened last week”. She had much harsher words for those she accused of spreading “lewd gossip” about her, apparently referring to reports of her reaction to events.
Read More: Secret service experts are speculating in group chats about how Trump could be pulled out of the White House if he doesn’t budge on the day of his inauguration.
CNN first reported on Friday that the First Lady was overseeing a photo shoot of decorative objects at the White House while deadly chaos consumed Washington last week after the president’s speech to his assembled supporters.
“I find it shameful that around these tragic events there have been lewd gossip, unwarranted personal attacks and false misleading accusations about me – from people looking to be relevant and have an agenda,” she said. “This time, it is just a question of healing our country and its citizens. It should not be used for personal gain.”
Two of the First Lady’s top advisers, Chief of Staff Stephanie Grisham and White House Social Secretary Anna Cristina Niceta, resigned on Wednesday night in part in response to the First Lady’s refusal to respond to the unrest, reported the CNN. Grisham was one of the oldest members of the Trump family and, most recently, served as communications director and speechwriter for the First Lady.
Notably, Trump copied a line in his statement Monday, word for word, from her speech at the Republican National Convention last August, reported Kate Bennett of CNN. The statement also included several grammatical errors, including misplaced apostrophes.
The first lady has a history of plagiarism: she removed several sections of the speech from former First Lady Michelle Obama at the 2008 Democratic National Convention for her 2016 speech at the RNC. She claimed that she had written the high-profile speech “with as little help as possible”, but a Trump campaign speechwriter later took the blame for plagiarism.
—Kate Bennett (@KateBennett_DC) January 11, 2021
Before the disturbances, the first lady expressed support for her husband’s false claims about the results of the 2020 elections and her lies about widespread electoral fraud. The day after major media outlets called for presidential election for President-elect Joe Biden, she tweeted: “The American people deserve fair elections. All legal votes – not illegal – must be counted. We must protect our democracy with full transparency”.