Stephanie Grisham (left) Max Miller.Photo: Paula Lobo/ABC via Getty; Scott Olson/Getty
Former Trump staffer Max Miller this week filed a defamation lawsuit against Stephanie Grisham, his ex-girlfriend and co-worker who just published atell-alland launched a media tour detailing her time in the White House — and, she claims, serious problems in their relationship.
Miller, 32 and now a candidate for Congress in Ohio, sued Grisham, 45, on Tuesday over a recent op-ed published inThe Washington Post.
In that column, Grisham wrote that a relationship with a fellow former White House staffer (whom she did not name) “turned abusive.”
In his complaint, filed Tuesday in Cuyahoga County Common Pleas Court, Miller argues that Grisham’s op-ed is “replete with libelous and defamatory false statements” about him.
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Though Miller’s suit acknowledges that Grisham refers to him only as her former “boyfriend, a fellow White House staffer” — and she has likewise tried to avoid naming him in interviews — Miller says that her op-ed is otherwise obvious about his identity.
His suit seeks punitive damages and also unsuccessfully sought a temporary order barring Grisham from repeating her claims about the alleged abuse in interviews or published statements.
“Unemployed and unbelievable, Ms. Grisham candidly confessed during an interview with George Stephanopoulos earlier this week that she is a professional liar,” the statement continued, a reference to aGood Morning Americaappearance she made earlier this week.
Stephanie Grisham (left) and Melania Trump.Jacquelyn Martin/AP/Shutterstock; Shutterstock
In herPostop-ed, Grisham wrote that former PresidentDonald Trumpand his wife, former First LadyMelania Trump, were privy to a lot of information about her relationship with the fellow staffer, including when they ultimately broke up.
“They also knew when the relationship turned abusive — and they didn’t seem to care,” she wrote.
Writing that she confided in the Trumps about how the relationship with the fellow staffer “had become violent,” Grisham claimed neither did anything with the information.
“The point is that the president and first lady seemed totally unfazed about whether there was an abuser —another abuser— in their workplace,” Grisham wrote in thePost. “There was no follow-up from either of them to see if I needed help or protection. There was no investigation ordered. No effort to get to the bottom of this.”
Speaking to PEOPLE on Wednesday, Grisham said that Miller’s treatment of her was no secret among her circle but that she still knew the risk of writing about it.
“With my publisher, it was a real struggle,” she says. “Part of me didn’t want to do it because I knew I would get sued — part of the Trump playbook is you sue people, you sue people to intimidate them or to abuse them further. That is what they do and so I had no doubt that a lawsuit or two or three or four would come my way. And that’s okay because everything I’ve written is honest and true.”
Grisham adds that she is “not thrilled” with having to deal with her ex due to the lawsuit.
“But I have the truth on my side and I expected this kind of behavior and this intimidation,” she says.
Stephanie Grisham.Alex Wong/Getty Images
Grisham’s new book,I’ll Take Your Questions Now, recounts her time in the White House serving as the press secretary and communications director and, later, asthe first lady’s chief of staff. She was also Mrs. Trump’s spokeswoman from 2017 until just before the end of the administration.
Grisham resigned from the Trump White House on Jan. 6, hours after the attack on the U.S. Capitol with only days remaining in Trump’s term.
Mrs. Trump’s team has dismissed her book as “an attempt to redeem herself after a poor performance as Press Secretary,” with “mistruth and betrayal.”
source: people.com
