A federal judge dismissed journalist Michael Wolff's preemptive lawsuit against Melania Trump, clearing the path for her threatened defamation claim.
A federal judge in Manhattan has dismissed journalist Michael Wolff’s lawsuit against First Lady Melania Trump, rejecting what she called a “contorted” effort to head off a threatened billion-dollar defamation case over comments linking her to Jeffrey Epstein.
U.S. District Judge Mary Kay Vyskocil, a Donald Trump appointee, ruled that Wolff’s preemptive suit was “not how the federal courts work.” In a 45-page opinion issued May 22, 2026, she wrote that Wolff was asking the court “for a declaration that, if the first lady sues him, he deserves to win.” That, she said, is not the court’s role.
Vyskocil acknowledged that the two sides have a “real dispute.” Still, she declined to decide the merits. “It’s an inappropriate level of tactical gamesmanship,” she wrote. “The Court will not be conscripted to oversee an abusively presented spat.” While the court had jurisdiction because the parties are citizens of different states and a large sum is at stake, she declined to exercise it and dismissed the case “to be litigated like any other.”