So what does Melania’s absence in court (and her deafening silence) say about her marriage to Donald Trump… especially since he was supported during the trial by three of her five children?

Donald Trump’s secret trial was at the heart of his relationship with women – but the woman who mattered most was conspicuously absent.

Melania Trump did not appear once during the six-week proceedings: a disappearing act that would have upset her husband, who was ostensibly supported in court by three of his five children: Don Jr, Eric and Tiffany. (But not by Ivanka, once a key member of his White House administration, nor by Barron, his teenage son with Melania.)

Experts are clear that, politically, it would have helped Trump enormously if Melania, 54, had been seen alongside her man.

Yet what woman could have faced court to hear sordid testimony that her husband had sex with a porn star at a charity golf tournament while she was back home breastfeeding their newborn ?

Prosecution witnesses insisted that Trump tried to buy the silence of Stormy Daniels’ tire for $130,000 in 2016, not because he feared Melania would discover his grisly mission ten years earlier – but because that he feared the news would harm his electoral prospects.

Daniels, meanwhile, testified that the man 32 years her senior didn’t seem to care about keeping their affair a secret.

Some assumed the lurid courtroom circus contained nothing Melania didn’t know before. But one wonders if she had ever heard the claim – made by former Trump “fixer” Michael Cohen – that Trump “didn’t think” of Melania in choosing to hush up the affair with Daniels because: “It was all about the campaign.”

Cohen further testified that when he asked Trump if news of the affair might lead Melania to divorce him, Trump responded casually: “Don’t worry…How long do you think I’ll be on the market ?

As Trump rages over the “rigged” trial, plans his inevitable appeal and calculates how the conviction will affect his electoral prospects in November, some wonder whether sheer ignorance of the proceedings could have a lasting impact on the ex-Premier lady and the government. marriage.

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In April, a source told The New York Times that Melania accepted Trump’s argument that the charges against him were a “disgrace”: a cynical attempt to damage his electoral prospects.

However, if The Donald had since then hoped for a public declaration of support from his wife, none came. Indeed, according to internal sources, Melania privately mentioned the Daniels case as “her problem”.

Stephanie Grisham, Melania’s former press secretary and chief of staff, said this week that she knows Melania’s absence from his trial “absolutely bothers him,” adding: “If Mrs. Trump wasn’t at an event (when Trump was president) and it was really noticed, he would definitely bring it up with her.

Another former counselor, Stephanie Winston Wolkoff, says that behind her calm facade, Melania accepted her husband’s character.

“She knows exactly who she married,” Wolkoff wrote this week. “She’s a ruthless survivor.

“A little legal drama won’t make him regret anything.

“As soon as this criminal case is over, she will be happy, relieved, to go home to Barron in his bathrobe and a smile on his face.” Melania and Barron, 18, reportedly attended most of the trial at Mar-a-Lago, Trump’s home in Palm Beach, Florida.

Sources, however, say they were in New York when the verdict was announced on Thursday – although Melania did not accompany her husband to a campaign fundraising dinner at a private home in the city that evening.

Most well-informed observers believe the Trump marriage will survive this latest turmoil.

The former First Lady was reportedly deeply angry and humiliated when information about Daniels’ affair first emerged in 2018.

Just two months before Trump met the porn star in 2006, Melania overcame her natural media shyness to tell Oprah Winfrey about her husband’s “incredible” fatherly instincts. (Biographers counter that Trump made it clear to Melania that if she had his child, he would not be actively involved in raising it, and he wasn’t even in the delivery room when Barron was born.)

When news of the affair broke, Melania did not join her then-president husband on an official trip to Davos, Switzerland, headed to Mar-a-Lago without him. When she returned to Washington a few days later, she took a separate car to her first State of the Union address, appearing on the arm of a male military aide.

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Sources have long maintained that their marriage is “transactional.” Melania, a Slovenian-born model, had a fabulously rich, famous and influential husband, but was forced to accept stories about his behavior as a woman.

She is fiercely protective of Barron, the only child in their 19-year union, and was reportedly particularly concerned that his name would be kept out of the secret trial.

Given that the young man was raised largely by his mother – with considerable help from his parents, Viktor and the late Amalija – it is not surprising that he did not attend the trial either.

Since Trump left office in 2021, Melania has largely disappeared from public view, living mostly at Mar-a-Lago and making headlines only for occasional charity announcements and efforts to monetize her “brand.” . In December 2021, for example, it announced that it would release digital art – “NFTs” or non-fungible tokens – with a portion of the proceeds funding scholarships for children in foster care. Bidding received far less than expected.

Melania was additionally spotted alongside her husband at two key political events this year, both in Florida. She joined him in the state primary in March, even though she missed his “Super Tuesday” party at Mar-a-Lago a few weeks earlier.

Afterward, she was reportedly “all smiles” at a dinner that raised $50 million for her husband’s campaign, hosted by a Republican billionaire in Palm Beach in April. A source said she was “ready to be First Lady again and clearly enjoying it.” The evening’.

Could this have been further evidence of their “transactional” relationship? After all, last September it was claimed that Mrs. Trump had “quietly” renegotiated her prenuptial agreement with her 77-year-old spouse.

A source stressed that this did not mean she was preparing to leave him, but reflected the fact that her legal troubles and second run for the White House had forced her to take steps to ensure that she and Barron were taken care of financially. “Melania is very concerned about maintaining and growing substantial trust in their son,” the source said.

Barron just graduated high school and is headed to college — although his father recently revealed he hasn’t decided where to go yet.

Insiders say that whatever happens next, Trump knows he has to keep his wife sweet while trying to keep millions of American voters — especially women — on his side.

As Stephanie Grisham, Melania’s former assistant, points out: “Ultimately, she can make or break her candidacy.”