Justice Department sues Stephanie Winston Wolkoff over Melania Trump tell-all book

The federal government is coming for first lady Melania Trump’s ex-BFF and the profits from her tell-all book, "Melania and Me: The Rise and Fall of My Friendship with the First Lady.”

Stephanie Winston Wolkoff is being sued by the U.S. Department of Justice for allegedly breaking a nondisclosure agreement in publishing the book, which hit shelves in early September. The White House tell-all recounts Wolkoff’s nearly two-decade friendship with Trump and its bitter dissolution.

Wolkoff worked as an unpaid advisor to Melania Trump from early 2017 to February 2018, and before that helped organize the presidential inauguration. Wolkoff resigned following unfavorable public disclosures over the inauguration's finances.

In a complaint filed Tuesday in U.S. District Court in Washington, Justice Department lawyers accuse Wolkoff of breach of contract, stating that “Ms. Wolkoff promised to maintain strict confidentiality over ‘nonpublic, privileged and/or confidential information’ that she might obtain during her service.” The complaint continues that Wolkoff was “specifically prohibited from publishing, reproducing or otherwise divulging any such information to any unauthorized person or entity in whole or in part,” and further alleges that Wolkoff had “indirect access to deliberative information, to which the First Lady was privy, related to the President’s official duties on behalf of the country.”

The Justice Department is asking the court to set aside the book’s profits in a government trust.

“This was a contract with the United States and therefore enforceable by the United States,” Justice spokeswoman Kerri Kupec said. She declined to comment on “deliberative conversations” that preceded the Justice action. The suit alleges that Wolkoff never submitted a draft of her book to the first lady or White House counsel for review despite the inclusion of personnel decisions and discussion of the first lady's "Be Best" initiative, which it says was expressly prohibited by the nondisclosure agreement.

The department is also pursuing a criminal investigation into whether former national security adviser John Bolton unlawfully disclosed classified information in his book, "The Room Where It Happened," published in June, also by Simon & Schuster.

Legal analysts said the Justice Department's action, and its history of intervention in other cases on the side of Trump allies, smacked of retaliation.

"So now Bill Barr is not just DONALD Trump’s lawyer/fixer-but he is also MELANIA Trump’s lawyer?" tweeted legal analyst Glenn Kirschner. "And Barr has deployed the DOJ against Stephanie Wolkoff, Melania’s former friend who wrote a tell-all book? Barr continues to soil the DOJ in horrific ways."

USA TODAY has reached out to publisher Simon & Schuster, for comment.

'What a fool I was': First lady's ex-best friend tells all in revenge book 'Melania & Me'

More: A bizarre White House dinner with Donald Trump and more cringeworthy moments from Mary Trump’s book

Wolkoff writes that she believes she was set up by her enemies (read: Ivanka Trump) in the West Wing to be the focus of public outrage when the Presidential Inaugural Committee revealed its numbers in February 2018: $107 million raised, with $26 million to Wolkoff's company partnership. It looked as if Wolkoff had walked away with a huge chunk of change. But in fact, she says in her book, the money went to vendors contracted by her company, who were unmentioned in the White House statement.

Wolkoff feels her reputation and integrity were permanently damaged by the Trump White House, aided by "inaccurate" reporting by the media and by Melania Trump's failure to defend her.

The book also claims that Melania Trump and Donald Trump’s daughter Ivanka share an especially strained relationship, and that Ivanka Trump has worked to undermine and constrain Melania Trump in her role as first lady. Wolkoff writes that during the inauguration, she and Melania Trump executed “Operation Block Princess,” a plot to keep Ivanka Trump’s face from being too close to her father during the swearing-in ceremony. It was "petty," Wolkoff admits, but they believed Ivanka Trump should not be the center of attention in her father's inauguration.

At the time of the book’s publication, USA TODAY reached out to Stephanie Grisham, the first lady's chief of staff and spokesperson, for a response. “This book is not only wildly self-aggrandizing, it’s just not truthful,” Grisham told USA TODAY in an email. “It is an exercise in bizarre twisting of the truth and misguided blame for the sake of self-pity. It’s unfortunate and concerning that she’s overstated their friendship and her very brief role in the White House to this degree.”

Contributing: Maria Puente, USA TODAY

This article originally appeared on USA TODAY: Justice Department sues Melania Trump's ex-BFF over 'Melania and Me'