Melania Threatens to Sue Hunter Over Epstein Claim

"Following receipt of our cease-and-desist demand letter just a week ago, The Daily Beast issued an apology to Mrs. Trump and retracted the false and defamatory statements contained in the article by deleting it in its entirety," Brito wrote. "Despite this, you have unjustifiably relied upon Mr. Wolff’s false, defamatory, disparaging, and inflammatory statements about Mrs. Trump and maliciously elected to republish them."

"The timing of this video is evident and underscores the actual malice behind the decision to publish it given the plain falsity of the statements," Brito wrote. "Given your vast history of trading on the names of others—including your surname—for your personal benefit, it is obvious that you published these false and defamatory statements about Mrs. Trump to draw attention to yourself."

The source said Biden and his team "leaked the letter" from the first lady's attorney to "a friendly reporter," which "shows how deeply concerned they are about Hunter's serious liability for spreading defamatory lies."

"Editor’s Note. After this story was published, The Beast received a letter from First Lady Melania Trump’s attorney challenging the headline and framing of the article. After reviewing the matter, the Beast has taken down the article and apologizes for any confusion or misunderstanding," The Daily Beast posted in place of the article. The url for the article appears to have been amended to remove the original headline and now reads: thedailybeast.com/epstein-this-story-has-been-removed.

"In last week's podcast episode, we spoke with Judd Legum," he said. "After the episode, we received a letter from Melania Trump's lawyer. He took issue with our title of one of those YouTube videos from that episode and a couple of comments I made about the first lady. We took a look at what they complained about, and we took down the video and edited out those comments from the episode. I also take back these statements and apologize."

An aide to the first lady, Nick Clemens, told Fox News Digital in a statement, "First Lady Melania Trump’s attorneys are actively ensuring immediate retractions and apologies by those who spread malicious, defamatory falsehoods. The true account of how the First Lady met President Trump is in her best-selling book, ‘Melania.’"