The DOJ dropped a Trump-era lawsuit against Melania's former friend who wrote a tell-all

• Stephanie Winston Wolkoff published a book about her friendship with Melania Trump last September.
• The DOJ sued Wolkoff over the book the following month, accusing her of breaking an NDA.
• The DOJ, now under Biden, dropped the suit on Monday, without giving a reason.

The Justice Department has stopped pursuing legal action against Stephanie Winston Wolkoff, the former friend of Melania Trump who wrote a book about their relationship, according to a notice filed by the department on Monday.

Wolkoff's "Melania and Me: The Rise and Fall of My Friendship with the First Lady" was released in September 2020, and the DOJ sued Wolkoff the following month, claiming that she had broken a nondisclosure agreement by publishing a book.

But in a one-page notice submitted to a Washington, DC, court on Monday, the DOJ gave no reason for dropping the suit.

Wolkoff made a series of claims about the former first lady in her book, including:

• That Trump wore a jacket emblazoned with the words "I really don't care, do u?" to the US border in 2018 to get media attention.
• That she tried to stop Ivanka Trump, her stepdaughter, from appearing on TV during the 2017 inauguration.

The DOJ had accused Wolkoff of breach of contract and breach of fiduciary obligations in relation to the book's publication.

It also said that she broke a nondisclosure agreement that she had signed with the White House in August 2017.

"Because of the trust placed in Ms. Wolkoff by the First Lady, and in consideration for access to the White House and sensitive information, Ms. Wolkoff agreed to maintain strict confidentiality regarding this information," the complaint said.

The department had also sought to get all the profits that Wolkoff made from the book transferred into a government trust.

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At the time, Wolkoff told Reuters the confidentiality provisions ended "when the White House terminated the agreement," and called the lawsuit "a blatant abuse of the government to pursue [the Trumps'] own personal interests and goals."

Her attorney Lorin L. Reisner, told The Washington Post on Monday: "We are very pleased that the Department of Justice is dismissing this lawsuit."

A DOJ official told Politico: "The Department evaluated the case and concluded that dismissal without prejudice was in the best interests of the United States based on the facts and the law."