'Clearly more to this story': Columnist floats new theory about Melania's Epstein claims

David Rothkopf, a columnist with The Daily Beast, floated a new theory about why first lady Melania Trump gave seemingly unprompted remarks about her relationship with disgraced financier and convicted sex criminal Jeffrey Epstein on Thursday afternoon.

Trump held a press conference where she declared that the "lies" about her relationship with Epstein "need to stop." Her comments came at a time when the Trump administration is trying to navigate a wave of criticism over its handling of the war in Iran.

Some analysts speculated that Trump's comments were intended to get ahead of potentially damaging information about her that could emerge in a few days. Rothkopf argued in a new column that other motivations were at play.

"That Melania then went on to call for Congressional hearings at which the victims of Epstein could be heard must not have sat well with a president and those around him who have been working like crazy to stop just that from happening," Rothkopf wrote. "So, there is clearly more to this story than meets the eye. And it will be very interesting both to get to the bottom of it and to watch the media spend the days and weeks ahead trying to disprove the First Lady’s Sergeant Schultz-like assertion of 'I know nothing.'"

"For now, we are left with an apparent choice by the president and his team to return the Epstein story to center stage, and with the abundance of evidence that their primary goal was to get people to stop thinking about the president’s catastrophic decision to attack Iran and his despicable performance as commander-in-chief," Rothkopf continued. "Unless of course, the president was as blindsided by his wife’s statement as anyone else and we therefore must conclude the old guy is no more aware of, or in control of, what goes on in the White House than he is of anything else at the moment."