An ‘annoyed’ Melania Trump stays mum on Mar-a-Lago search as she promotes NFT business

CNN
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Shortly after the FBI searched his Mar-a-Lago home earlier this month, former President Donald Trump lashed out on social media about agents rummaging through his wife’s clothes and personal belongings.

“Just learned that agents went through the first lady’s closet and rummaged through her clothes and personal belongings. Surprisingly, it left the area in a relative mess. Wow!” Trump posted on Truth Social.

He was much angrier — exclamation point angry — than Melania Trump, according to five people who spoke to CNN about Melania Trump’s recent activities on condition of anonymity to protect personal and professional relationships.

“She cared, but not like he cared,” said a person familiar with the former first lady’s response.

“It upset her,” said another person in the search, who noted that it was the invasion of her privacy that upset her — not the nature of the investigation that prompted the search, or what it meant, or could possibly mean, legally, for her husband.

The feds who were in her bedroom, her closets, and her bathroom were getting a little too close to her independent path. But the former first lady has not been provoked enough to make a public statement about the search, or what it has turned out to be. Instead, her public statements — through her Twitter account — have focused on her most obvious passion since leaving Washington: NFTs.

CNN reached out to Trump several times for comment on this story and did not receive a response.

“She’s private and she’s protective of her son and her home,” the second person added.

The warrant was explicit about the rooms and areas the agents could search, and it included any place the former president visits, said a person familiar with the details of the execution of the warrant. The Trumps have separate bedrooms in their 3,500-square-foot Mar-a-Lago, three people familiar with the arrangement told CNN, but Melania Trump’s bedroom and closet are just a short walk from the former president’s bedroom and home office.

Although she was exhausted and irritated by strangers going through her curated and expensive collection of clothes and shoes and bags, those who know her say, she was—and remains—characteristically quiet.

“Why would she say anything?” said a person familiar with Trump’s long-standing tacit communications strategy. “Her mindset is that if she’s quiet, it will just go away,” this person says.

Trump’s few recent public appearances include a visit to a Manhattan hair salon.

The coolness also stems from a fundamental certainty that Donald Trump’s possessions, wherever acquired, would not be found in her bedroom or closet.

“She would never allow him to keep his things in her room and he would honestly never ask,” says one of the people.

“(Melania Trump) has always considered what Donald is doing to be separate from her,” said another person who has known the Trumps for several years. “Decisions he makes about his business are his decisions, not hers.”

Being a former president of the United States who is still in the headlines has Donald Trump busy. As focused as he has been over the past year and a half — as a Republican kingmaker or fending off investigations — Melania Trump’s post-White House life has been lower profile.

Although out of the public eye, since early this year Trump has paid considerable attention to a business called USA Memorabilia, using her Twitter platform — she has a personal account with 2 million followers and an “official” office account with 124,000 followers – to promote NFTs made and sold by USA Memorabilia.

Of the 50 or so tweets Trump has posted since mid-February, nearly half have been retweets of those posted by USA Memorabilia’s Twitter account, which has fewer than 500 followers, or her own tweets linking the NFTs on the site .

“It’s weird,” says a former Trump adviser on the former first lady’s promotion of a for-profit company. “Being so blatant about making money off US-themed collectibles.”

Two people familiar with Trump’s foray into NFTs say she has been briefed lately by Marc Beckman, a longtime friend and the husband of fashion designer Alice Roi, who designed a handful of outfits for Trump during her tenure as first lady. Beckman has for many years run a marketing and branding agency, but has recently turned to the world of cryptocurrencies and how to profit from the new era of technology-based collectibles. In 2021, Beckman published a book called “The Comprehensive Guide to NFTs, Digital Artwork, and Blockchain Technology.”

Multiple attempts to reach Beckman by CNN were unsuccessful.

There is no outwardly identifiable link between USA Memorabilia and the former first lady, but the only two accounts the Twitter account follows are hers, and the majority of items sold feature Melania Trump, or her husband. Several attempts by CNN to contact representatives of USA Memorabilia have gone unanswered.

The collections released on the company’s website are government-owned items, such as the National Parks Collection, the Valor Collection — focused on the branches of the U.S. military — and the POTUS Trump Collection, which are NFTs from various moments in Trump’s presidential history.

One NFT in the latter collection—which each cost $50—is of the former first pair with a digitally waving American flag and Mount Rushmore in the background; another, “45 First Lady NFT,” shows Melania Trump and Donald Trump wearing tuxedos, an official photograph from their time in the White House, used as their 2020 holiday card.

Although the profits from USA Memorabilia NFTs are not publicly available – and attempts by CNN to obtain this information from the company were unsuccessful – the former first lady continues to promote the sale via social media.

“It is very unusual for a former first lady not to benefit from her continued power and prestige after she leaves office. But I’ve learned that trying to understand what Melania is doing is a losing game,” said Kate Andersen Brower, CNN contributor and author of “The Residence” and “First Women: The Grace and Power of America’s Modern First Ladies. ”

Also not mentioned on Trump’s tweets promoting USA Memorabilia, the latest of which took place Monday, is a charitable component the former first lady touted back in December of last year, when she first announced her entrepreneurial foray into blockchain sales with a $150 digital photo. of her eyes.

Trump said the sale would lead to a “commitment to children through my Be Best initiative” and that profits would provide computer science skills to children who had aged out of the foster care system. However, no breakdown of the share of proceeds, or confirmation of organizations that would receive funds raised, was announced, despite repeated requests from CNN over several months for clarity.

In a May interview with Fox, Trump said she would award scholarships from an initiative she calls “Fostering the Future,” but only one scholarship has been publicly awarded so far, the details of which were not released.

“Just as it is in office, there is no rulebook for how much or how little (a former first lady) should do. Each woman has approached it differently, Brower said of Trump’s unorthodox business model.

First ladies don’t get government money to establish large offices after they leave the White House, and after their husbands die, they receive a paltry $20,000 a year in pensions. Several of the people CNN spoke to for this story speculated that Trump is trying to set up a business separate from her husband, who is currently mired in several legal entanglements.

“I would imagine that as his wife and the mother of his child, she must be worried (about the future),” said the person who has known Trump for many years. “She might at least be a little worried about how her own life will change.”

With one of the largest public platforms in the world, it is challenging to understand why Trump would support a little-known digital memorabilia business, when she – perhaps like her recent predecessors – could establish initiatives with global influence. Therefore, each of the people who know Trump and discussed her recent activities with CNN became uneasy.

“To sum up, I think it’s a wasted opportunity for a former first lady to not remain relevant,” Brower said.