According to her former Chief of Staff, Melania Trump expressed her concerns about Donald Trump getting bad advice from people during his last months in office and numerous unannounced visitors, like Sidney Powell and Rudy Giuliani, walking in on her while she had just a robe on.
Stephanie Grisham, Melania’s former Chief of Staff, told the House Select Committee investigating the January 6 Capitol riot that Melania, now 52, thought that the people advising her husband during the final part of his presidency failed him.
According to Grisham, the former first lady also became very upset when the president’s advisors walked into the residential areas in the White House without prior warnings.
In a transcript released by the panel on Thursday, during her testimony in May, Grisham said that Melania hated when people would go to the residence. She said Melania considered the White House residential areas her home, and she wanted privacy. Towards the end of Trump’s presidency, Melania told Grisham that there were always people meeting in the Yellow Oval, a room in the residency.
According to the transcript, Melania was upset because no one gave her a heads-up that there would be people coming around the residence and she was “not dressed for company.” The only specific names she gave to Grisham were Rudy Giuliani, Sidney Powell, and other people involved in the campaign.
Melania always wanted to be informed before people came into the house. Although the testimony did not confirm if anyone ever walked in on Melania wearing a robe, Grisham said that the concern was only theoretical to the best of her knowledge.
Before joining the White House staff, Grisham was part of Trump’s 2016 campaign. She was one of Melania’s top aides for three of Trump’s years in office before she resigned after the January 6 insurrection at the US Capitol.
She worked as the White House Press Secretary between July 2019 and April 2020, but she had a bad working relationship with Mark Meadows, the former Chief of Staff. He forced her out of her job, and she returned to the first lady’s team as Melania’s Chief of Staff.
Melania blamed Meadows for his failure to give Trump sound advice during his last months as president. Grisham also said she was surprised that Melania did not speak up about Trump’s claims about election fraud.
According to Grisham, Melania felt that the former Chief of Staff Meadows was letting many people she thought were harmful to the president steer him in the wrong direction.
She said that Melania did not like it when people told the former president what he wanted to hear instead of laying the facts on the table and telling him the reality of the situation.
The former aide said Melania was wary of Jenna Ellis, Rudy Giuliani, and Sidney Powell. She called Ronna McDaniel, the Republican National Committee Chair, several times to ask where Trump was on the polls because she did not fully trust the campaign staff.
Grisham described Melania as a pragmatic person. She wanted people to give her the worst-case scenario, which nobody did for Trump.
The Select House committee issued its final report on December 22 and recommended four criminal charges against Donald Trump for his actions on January 6.