Hunter Biden has refused to back down after making explosive claims about Melania Trump's links to disgraced financier Jeffrey Epstein.
Earlier this month, the son of ex-President Joe Biden appeared in a YouTube video with Channel 5's Andrew Callaghan and claimed the convicted sex offender was responsible for introducing Melania to her 79-year-old husband.
"The connections are, like, so wide and deep," he added in the 5 August interview.
The First Lady was not impressed to hear allegations linking her marriage to Trump to Epstein and promptly fired back by threatening legal action, calling his comments 'false, defamatory, disparaging and inflammatory.'
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A copy of the letter sent my Melania's legal team has since been published by Fox News, with the 55-year-old demanding Biden retract the claims and apologise or face a $1 billion (£736 million) lawsuit.
However, the threat of costly legal action appears to have done little to deter Biden, who has now doubled down on his comments.
"F**k that! That’s not going to happen," Biden said in a new interview with Callaghan.
Biden then went on to reiterate that he was only repeating claims which have previously been reported and branded the threats as nothing more than 'designed distraction.'
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"First of all is that, what I said was what I have heard and seen reported and written, primarily from Michael Wolff but also dating back all the way to 2019 when The New York Times – I think Annie Carney and and Maggie Haberman – reported that sources said that Jeffrey Epstein claimed to be the person to introduce Donald Trump to Melania at that time," he continued.
"But the primary source was the interviews that Michael Wolff has been conducting, in which he has actually tapes of, I think, hours and hours and hours of interviews with Jeffrey Epstein directly."
He added: "So, you know, fact of the matter is that, you know, I don’t think that these threats of a lawsuit add up to anything other than a designed distraction because it’s not about who introduced whom to who.
"I don’t know how that in any way rises to the level of defamation to begin with."
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Wolff had made similar claims about Epstein and the Trump's last month in an interview with The Daily Beast, in which he suggested: "Epstein knows her [Melania] well."
However, the outlet has since removed the story from its website, possibly due to objection from Trump, and issued an apology, which reads: "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 apologises for any confusion or misunderstanding."
LADbible Group previously contacted Hunter Biden's attorney for comment.
Topics: Hunter Biden, Melania Trump, Donald Trump, US News
Brenna Cooper