Melania Trump's Lawyer Demanded a Retraction. Narativ Is Launching a Legal Defense Fund.
The demand letter, read on air July 27, targets the published Zampolli–Ungaro investigation — a record any reader can weigh for themselves.
Melania Trump sent us a demand letter, and is demanding a response by today. To pay for legal costs we will launch a klegal defense fund today.
I read the letter on the July 27 Fivestack. The First Lady's attorney demands that Shalev and journalist Amanda Ungaro "immediately retract the false, malicious, and defamatory statements" in Narativ's reporting on Paolo Zampolli, and that they compensate the First Lady for "overwhelming financial and reputational harm." The attorney has filed no suit. Shalev declined every demand on air. "I don't even know how to retract it, because it's just accurate reporting," he said.
The reporting is at Narativ.org "The Spy at the First Lady's Side," published July 11, documented Paolo Zampolli — the modeling agent who brought Melania Knauss to America thirty years ago and now serves as US Special Envoy for Global Partnerships, a rank-of-ambassador post that required no Senate confirmation and no security clearance. Narativ built the investigation on Zampolli's own emails — Ungaro, his partner of two decades, released them — and vetted every document against the Epstein files, court records and contemporaneous reporting. Zampolli and the First Lady text constantly, Ungaro said.
The Spy at the First Lady's Side
Paolo Zampolli was holding court in early April 2013 at his birthday party at the boisterous Provocateur nightclub in Manhattan's swishy Meatpacking District. Zampolli feted guests that spanned the world of international diplomacy and modelling, yet none was more important to the modeling agent turned international diplomat than Vitaly Churkin.
