US first lady Melania Trump delayed her move to Washington after Donald Trump became president to gain leverage in renegotiating her prenuptial agreement, according to a new book.
The White House denounced the book after it became public on Friday.
Mary Jordan, author of The Art of Her Deal: The Untold Story of Melania Trump, which is to be released on Tuesday, wrote that the 2016 campaign had been rife with reports about Trump’s alleged infidelities and the first lady was learning new details about them from media reports.
Photo: AP
Jordan, a reporter for the Washington Post, wrote that the incoming first lady wanted time to cool off and amend her financial arrangement with Trump to ensure the financial future of herself and their son, Barron.
Melania Trump has said that she wanted to wait until the end of the school year to move to Washington.
Citing interviews with several people close to the Trumps, Jordan wrote that during the campaign, Melania Trump thought a lot had changed since she signed the prenuptial.
She had been with him longer than any other woman, and she believed she had made key contributions to his success, Jordan wrote.
She also wanted to ensure that Barron got his “rightful share of inheritance,” particularly if the president’s daughter Ivanka took the reins of the family business.
The Washington Post said that Jordan conducted more than 100 interviews for her book, including with the first lady’s schoolmates in her native Slovenia and former New Jersey governor Chris Christie.
Stephanie Grisham, a spokeswoman for Melania Trump, said that the book was based on inaccurate information.
“Yet another book about Mrs Trump with false information and sources,” Grisham said in an e-mailed statement. “This book belongs in the fiction genre.”
The first lady and Barron, who was 11 at the time, settled into the White House in early June 2017, and she seemed visibly happier by mid-2018, the book said.
“According to three people close to Trump, a key reason was that she had finally reached a new and significantly improved financial agreement with Trump, which had left her in a noticeably better financial position,” Jordan wrote. “Those sources did not know precisely what she sought, but it was not simply more money.”
Jordan wrote that Melania Trump wanted “proof in writing” that Barron would be treated more of an equal to Trump’s oldest three children when it came to financial opportunities and inheritance.
A missing fingertip offers a clue to Mako Nishimura’s criminal past as one of Japan’s few female yakuza, but after clawing her way out of the underworld, she now spends her days helping other retired gangsters reintegrate into society. The multibillion-dollar yakuza organized crime network has long ruled over Japan’s drug rings, illicit gambling dens and sex trade. In the past few years, the empire has started to crumble as members have dwindled and laws targeting mafia are tightened. An intensifying police crackdown has shrunk yakuza forces nationwide, with their numbers dipping below 20,000 last year for the first time since records
CAUSE UNKNOWN: Weather and runway conditions were suitable for flight operations at the time of the accident, and no distress signal was sent, authorities said A cargo aircraft skidded off the runway into the sea at Hong Kong International Airport early yesterday, killing two ground crew in a patrol car, in one of the worst accidents in the airport’s 27-year history. The incident occurred at about 3:50am, when the plane is suspected to have lost control upon landing, veering off the runway and crashing through a fence, the Airport Authority Hong Kong said. The jet hit a security patrol car on the perimeter road outside the runway zone, which then fell into the water, it said in a statement. The four crew members on the plane, which
Japan’s ruling Liberal Democratic Party (LDP) and its junior partner yesterday signed a coalition deal, paving the way for Sanae Takaichi to become the nation’s first female prime minister. The 11th-hour agreement with the Japan Innovation Party (JIP) came just a day before the lower house was due to vote on Takaichi’s appointment as the fifth prime minister in as many years. If she wins, she will take office the same day. “I’m very much looking forward to working with you on efforts to make Japan’s economy stronger, and to reshape Japan as a country that can be responsible for future generations,”
Indonesia was to sign an agreement to repatriate two British nationals, including a grandmother languishing on death row for drug-related crimes, an Indonesian government source said yesterday. “The practical arrangement will be signed today. The transfer will be done immediately after the technical side of the transfer is agreed,” the source said, identifying Lindsay Sandiford and 35-year-old Shahab Shahabadi as the people being transferred. Sandiford, a grandmother, was sentenced to death on the island of Bali in 2013 after she was convicted of trafficking drugs. Customs officers found cocaine worth an estimated US$2.14 million hidden in a false bottom in Sandiford’s suitcase when