WASHINGTON – After remaining silent for five days after the Capitol rebellion instigated by her husband, Melania Trump, the first lady, issued a statement on Monday complaining about how she was treated before condemning the crowd’s deadly attack.
“I think it is 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,” wrote Mrs. Trump in a statement posted on the official website of the House White.
She added: “Our nation must heal itself in a civilized manner. Make no mistake, I absolutely condemn the violence that has occurred on our nation’s Capitol. Violence is never acceptable. “
It was probably the last public statement that Mrs. Trump will make as first lady, and it has drawn criticism even from some of those who over the years have been willing to give her the benefit of the doubt.
“At a time when the nation is suffering so much and we want moral authority from our leaders, it shouldn’t be about how she can feel slandered or mischaracterized,” said Anita McBride, who served as Laura Bush’s chief of staff when she was the first lady.
Ms. McBride has always advocated Ms. Trump’s approach to her role. But she added, “Unfortunately, whatever good she has done or tried to do on behalf of the nation will be defined by this horrible period.”
It was, in a way, a fitting ending to Mrs. Trump’s time at the White House. Her apathetic attitude towards her position and her frustration with the way she was covered in the media were best expressed on the back of a jacket she wore on a trip to visit migrant children in detention centers on the Mexican border: “I really don’t Caution. You? “
Mrs. Trump’s focus, even during a time of national crisis, on those who criticized her seemed like an addendum to the coat message: Ultimately, with her husband’s term coming to an end amid a crisis of democracy and a loss of life, she gave more than equal credit to her feeling of being unfairly portrayed.
An aide declined to say what specific “gossip” Ms. Trump was reacting to in her belated statement about the mob attack. But his former adviser and confidant Stephanie Winston Wolkoff recently wrote in a column for The Daily Beast that “the truth is that she is encouraging him to go ahead”, referring to Mrs. Trump’s general cheering attitude towards to her husband.
She also accused Mrs. Trump of “scrapbooking” in her spare time, filling albums with pictures of her, instead of using her global platform to promote any substantive agenda.
Ms. Wolkoff, who last year wrote a memoir about the disintegration of her relationship with Mrs. Trump, on Monday rejected the first lady’s statement as a “damage control” effort in a message from text, she said of the president and his wife: “Neither accepts the blame for his actions and that was the government’s misfortune”
The statement released on Monday by Mrs. Trump was also fraught with grammatical and typing errors, including a misspelling of the surname of a disorderly man who was shot dead during the attack on the Capitol, Ashli Babbitt. (It was later fixed online.)
Mrs. Trump also extended her condolences to Mrs. Babbitt before mentioning the Capitol officers who died after responding to the attack, Brian Sicknick and Howard Liebengood.
The declaration also seemed to literally recycle a passage of the main speech that Mrs. Trump gave at the Republican National Convention last year.
Last week, two of Ms. Trump’s top advisers, including her chief of staff and communications consultant, Stephanie Grisham, resigned. It was unclear who helped Ms. Trump write the statement.
“I implore people to stop violence, never make assumptions based on a person’s skin color or use different political ideologies as a basis for aggression and wickedness,” said Ms. Trump in the statement. “We must listen to each other, focus on what unites us and overcome what divides us.”