Winston Wolkoff has a new book spilling a lot of beans about her former close friend. On Good Morning America, Winston Wolkoff talked about tensions between Melania and Ivanka Trump and Melania laughing off the Access Hollywood tape, e.g.
Personally, I could not care less about the gossip. As far as I’m concerned, a pox on all the Trump houses.
But public corruption is a different matter. We’ve long known there was financial hanky-panky surrounding the Trump inauguration, the most costly ever. In 2019, C&L reported on “a wide-ranging investigation into possible money laundering, illegal contributions and cash-for-access schemes.”
As Good Morning America explains, Winston Wolkoff claims she was blindsided when The New York Times reported her firm had been paid more than $26 million (she claims almost all of that money went to an outside company and she received a small fraction).
In her book, Winston Wolkoff said she was also dumbfounded by what Melania Trump's spokeswoman told the New York Times around the time of her departure: that "the first lady ‘had no involvement’ with the inaugural committee ‘and had no knowledge of how funds were spent.'"
That was "complete and utter horses--t!" Winston Wolkoff wrote, claiming that Melania Trump was deeply involved in inauguration planning and personally approved at least some expenditures.
"Melania knew it all, every detail, including who was screwing around [and] the type of salmon served at the Candlelight Dinner," according to the book.
Winston Wolkoff discussed the betrayal on Good Morning America:
[…]
In February 2018, press reports questioned how much money Stephanie had made for her work on the inauguration. For the record, she says after payments to vendors, she personally made $480,000, She says she was devastated when Melania did not publicly support her.
WINSTON WOLKOFF: When the time came where I needed her to come out and tell the truth about that, she folded like a deck of cards.
DAVIS: Stephanie says she questioned many inauguration expenditures.
WINDSTON WOLKOFF: I think when I saw that a tree was, you know, a tree that you could buy for $10 was a thousand dollars or a stage that would cost $100,000 was a million dollars, I mean, those are when things started seeming questionable to me.
DAVIS: She says she’s still is working with three criminal investigations into inauguration spending.
According to GMA, one of those investigations is in the Southern District of New York. So maybe this is another reason Trump lackey Bill Barr ousted the U.S. attorney there and tried (and failed) to install Trump's golfing buddy instead.
