By Adam Cancryn, Kristen Holmes, CNN
(CNN) — With war raging in the Middle East and midterms on the horizon, the White House seemed to have finally shaken the Jeffrey Epstein saga that plagued the first year of Donald Trump’s second term.
Inside the White House, officials had started to move on.
But for first lady Melania Trump, the Epstein story was still all consuming.
Trump’s extraordinary remarks on Thursday distancing herself from the late sex offender were driven by her monthslong fixation on press coverage and internet speculation about her ties to Epstein, two people familiar with the matter told CNN.
The first lady’s dismay over the issue prompted her seemingly abrupt decision to publicly address it — despite little apparent need to do so and with minimal advance notice given even to her husband.
“There were stories about her that were being amplified by random blogs — and they were still hitting her over Epstein, because that is what they do,” one of the people familiar with the matter said. “She wanted to go on the record and deny it.”
The White House announced on Wednesday morning that Trump would be making a statement, without specifying the topic. Standing in the Cross Hall a little more than 24 hours later, the first lady stunned senior White House aides.
Even her husband said in a brief phone interview later that day that he didn’t know about it ahead of time. On Friday, he told The New York Times that he knew the first lady had wanted to speak about Epstein at some point but confirmed he did not know what she planned to say.
The president declined to tune into her remarks in real time, a senior White House official said.
But those remarks immediately reverberated across the Republican Party. They upended a news cycle dominated by highly anticipated efforts to negotiate a Middle East peace and dragged a saga her husband had been desperate to escape right back to the fore.
Among those who know her best, it fit a yearslong pattern of Melania Trump finding and focusing on negative coverage of herself no matter where on the internet it came from.
“She’d see things that I had no idea about and tell me something was ‘everywhere’ and send me links to websites I didn’t even know existed,” one former staffer told CNN, who was among those who recounted the first lady often complaining about stories from obscure sources. “It was not ‘everywhere.’”
Trump had informed West Wing officials ahead of time that she planned to make a statement but gave no indication what it was about, the senior White House official said.
The episode has left administration officials befuddled and bracing for the fallout, including the potential for the White House to get bogged down again by Epstein coverage.
Donald Trump defended his wife’s decision on Friday, telling The New York Times that “she had a right to talk about it,” even if he personally questioned whether he would have gone about it the same way.
The first lady on Thursday called for more congressional scrutiny of Epstein — specifically allowing survivors of his abuse to testify at public hearings, which undercut her husband’s insistence in recent months that Americans should move on to other topics.
On Friday, House Oversight Chairman James Comer committed to hold more hearings.
“I agree with the first lady,” the Kentucky Republican said on Fox News. “We will have hearings.”
A spokesman for the first lady declined to comment. The White House did not respond to a request for comment.
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