A former friend and adviser to Melania Trump said she recorded some of their conversations to protect herself after she left the White House.
Stephanie Winston Wolkoff told MSNBC that she has recordings to back up some of the allegations she has made about the first lady in her tell-all book. Wolkoff said she decided to record Trump because she needed to protect herself as their friendship fractured.
“I’ve been accused of taping my friend, as the White House said, and how horrible of a human being I am for doing that. And they’re right. If I — if she was my friend, I would be horrible, but Melania and the White House have accused me of criminal activity. Had publicly shamed and fired me and made me their scapegoat,” Wolkoff said on Tuesday night.
“At that moment in time, that’s when I pressed record. She was no longer my friend. And she was willing to let them take me down, and she told me herself that this is the way it has to be,” she added.
Wolkoff, who was also a contractor for planning President Trump’s inauguration, left the White House in 2018 when reports started to break about the extravagant spending on the inauguration.
“She was advised by the attorneys at the White House that there was no other choice because there was a possible investigation into the presidential inauguration committee. And that’s not how you treat a friend,” Wolkoff said. “So, I was going to do anything in my power to make sure that I was protected.”
Wolkoff said she was “shocked” that Trump did not defend her from White House officials.
[READ MORE: Former friend claims Melania Trump used private email accounts as first lady]
Her tell-all book, Melania and Me: The Rise and Fall of My Friendship with the First Lady, was released this week. Trump’s spokeswoman Stephanie Grisham claimed the allegations made in the book were false.
“Anybody who secretly tapes their self-described best friend is, by definition, dishonest,” Grisham said. “The book is not only full of mistruths and paranoia, it is based on some imagined need for revenge.”
