Left: U.S. first lady Melania Trump delivers remarks regarding the late financier and convicted child abuser Jeffrey Epstein from the Grand Foyer of the White House in Washington, D.C., U.S., April 9, 2026. REUTERS/Evan Vucci
Right: An undated photo of Jeffrey Epstein released by the Department of Justice. (DOJ)
A newly unearthed FBI document appears to directly contradict First Lady Melania Trump’s surprise statement last week regarding how she met her husband, President Donald Trump, and whether Jeffrey Epstein had played a role.
Last week, Mrs. Trump stunned onlookers by issuing a statement – seemingly unprompted – denying having had a relationship with Epstein, and denying allegations that the disgraced financier had been the one to introduce her to Trump. Paolo Zampolli, a former modeling agent who now serves as Trump’s special envoy, later claimed that he was the one to introduce Mrs. Trump to her future husband.
But according to a 2019 FBI interview summary report, one witness – a female from Poland who claimed to have worked for Epstein in the mid-2000s – claimed it was not Zampolli who introduced Mrs. Trump to the future president, but rather, Epstein himself.
“EPSTEIN introduced MELANIA TRUMP to DONALD TRUMP,” the FBI summary document reads, written by an FBI special agent whose name was redacted.
In her statement last week, Mrs. Trump explicitly denied that she had been introduced to her future husband by Epstein, saying that she instead met Mr. Trump “by chance, at a New York City party in 1998,” noting that further details of the encounter were “documented in detail in my book, MELANIA.” Zampolli, long a close friend to Mr. Trump, backed up Mrs. Trump’s claim that same week by calling the allegation that Epstein introduced the two “nonsense.”
According to the witness interview by the FBI in 2019, however, not only did Epstein introduce Mrs. Trump to Mr. Trump, but "the agent" – presumably Zampolli, based on context – had an “affair” with the witness, and had also attempted to purchase Elite Model Management – a French modeling agency that represented Trump’s daughter, Ivanka, when she was 15 years old – with Epstein.
“[Redacted] had an affair with the agent. ZEMPOLI was trying to buy Elite Models with EPSTEIN,” the report reads. “EPSTEIN was visiting ZEMPOLI at the agency when there were casting auditions for models. EPSTEIN was looking through portfolios and saw [Redacted’s] photograph of her wearing only swim bottoms.”
During her statement last week, Mrs. Trump also appeared to acknowledge sending a 2002 email to Epstein accomplice Ghislaine Maxwell, who’s currently serving a 20-year sentence for child abuse. In the email, a sender named “Melania” complimented who is believed to be Maxwell on her appearance in a New York Magazine article, and exchanged pleasantries. Mrs. Trump dismissed the email as nothing more than “casual correspondence.”
Trump, Mrs. Trump and Zampolli are not facing any criminal charges or accusations of wrongdoing. The claims of the witness whose interview was summarized by the FBI have not been verified by the agency.