First lady Melania Trump's bombshell denial of ties to Jeffrey Epstein made a major omission, political analysts reported on Friday.
The Bulwark's William Kristol, Andrew Egger, and Jim Swift identified that it was what the first lady did not say — and who she did not name — that was most revealing. The move effectively threw her husband, President Donald Trump, under the bus.
"Yesterday, Melania Trump made her move to quit the rotten carcass of her husband’s presidency," The Bulwark reported.
"Left unsaid, but not unimplied, was that none of these claims could be made about her husband," according to The Bulwark report. "He was a pal of Epstein’s. He was on Epstein’s plane. His relationship with Epstein, as exemplified for example in his contribution to Epstein’s birthday book, was more than 'casual' or 'trivial.'"
Melania also referred to the survivors and showed concern for them, something that the Trump administration has not yet done. Her husband has called the public's interest in Epstein "a hoax" and suggested the saga should go away altogether.
"The truth hasn’t yet been uncovered, and we need to uncover it," The Bulwark reported. "And if doing so leads more 'prominent male executives' to resign, so be it. One wonders: Could Melania have one prominent male chief executive in mind?"
"Melania chose not to include in her statement any assertion of her husband’s innocence of complicity in the Epstein affair," The Bulwark explained.
What she said — and what remains unknown — raises major questions.
"And now she seems to think that the man to whom she hitched herself may be going down. She’s trying to arrange not to go down with him," according to The Bulwark.
"She presumably doesn’t think her husband can be induced to become one of those 'prominent male executives' who resigns from his powerful position. But she knows that he can be removed from it. Isn’t Melania signaling others in the Trump administration and her husband’s supporters in Congress that it’s time to abandon ship, that it’s time to remove him from office?"