Who Is Michael Wolff? 10 Things to Know About the Journalist Who Exchanged Emails With Jeffrey Epstein on Donald Trump

Michael Wolff, the journalist and author who has made headlines for his claims about Jeffrey Epstein and Donald Trump, was born to Lewis A. Wolff and Marguerite Wolff in Paterson, N.J., on August 27, 1953.

According to Montclair Local, Michael graduated from Montclair Academy in 1971, where he served as the president of the student council. He was also the secretary of the Red and Black Society, the editor of Spectrum and a member of the Political Club and the Leones Debating Society in high school.

After finishing high school, Michael attended Vassar before transferring to Columbia College, where he graduated in 1975.

Michael and his first wife, lawyer Alison Anthoine, filed for divorce in 2009. He then began dating former Vanity Fair intern Victoria Floethe and later married the blonde journalist.

Michael is a father-of-five: three with Alison and two with Victoria.

After Michael worked as a copy boy for The New York Times, he published his first article — a profile of Angela Atwood — in TIME in 1974. His name also began appearing in New Times, Vanity Fair, New York Magazine, British GQ, The Hollywood Reporter, Adweek, The Industry Standard, USA Today and The Guardian in the years thereafter.

Michael won National Magazine Awards in 2002 and 2004 for his columns.

In 1979, he published his first book, White Kids, which was a collection of essays. Then, in 1998, Simon & Schuster released his first-ever best-seller, Burn Rate.

Michael's other books include The Man Who Owns the News, a seminal biography of Rupert Murdoch.

Together with Patrick Spain, Michael co-founded the news aggregation website, Newser, in 2007. The news curator aims to "make the news faster and easier to consume," according to its About page.

As an author, Michael has written four books about Donald and his presidency: Fire and Fury: Inside the Trump White House, Siege: Trump Under Fire, Landslide: The Final Days of the Trump Presidency and All or Nothing: How Trump Recaptured America.

Reflecting on his book Fire and Fury, Michael said he "became an outlet for Epstein to express his incredulity about someone whose sins he knew so well, and then this person actually being elected president. Epstein was utterly preoccupied with Trump and [he] think[s], frankly, afraid of him."

Michael launched a legal battle after Melania Trump filed a $1 billion suit over "false, defamatory, disparaging, misleading and inflammatory statements" made about her in a podcast and a Daily Beast article.

In the lawsuit, the journalist claimed the First Lady threatened to sue him if he did not retract his statements. He then accused Melania and Donald of "making a practice of threatening those who speak against them with costly SLAPP actions to silence their speech, to intimidate their critics generally, and to extract unjustified payments and North Korean style confessions and apologies."

The 15-page filing added, "By her Threat Letter and this responsive Declaratory Action and related Anti- SLAPP Declaratory Action, Mrs. Trump has given Wolff subpoena power which he intends to exercise fully and expeditiously."

Meanwhile, Nicholas Clemens, a spokesperson for Melania, said in a statement, "First Lady Melania Trump is proud to continue standing up to those who spread malicious and defamatory falsehoods as they desperately try to get undeserved attention and money from their unlawful conduct."

On November 12, House Democrats released Jeffrey's emails that referenced Donald.

Two of the three emails released were correspondences between the late convicted s-- trafficker and Michael, who previously claimed he "probably" has "100 hours of Epstein talking about the inner workings of the Trump White House and about his long-standing, deep relationship with Donald Trump."

In one unearthed exchange dated December 2015, Michael wrote to Jeffrey, "I hear CNN planning to ask Trump tonight about his relationship with you--either on air or in scrum afterwards."

"If we were to craft an answer for him, what do you think it should be?" Jeffrey replied, according to the released screenshots.

"I think you should let him hang himself," Michael responded. "If he says he hasn't been on the plane or to the house, then that gives you a valuable PR and political currency. You can hang him in a way that potentially generates a positive benefit for you, or, if it really looks like he could win, you could save him, generating a debt. Of course, it is possible that, when asked, he'll say Jeffrey is a great guy and has gotten a raw deal and is a victim of political correctness, which is to be outlawed in a Trump regime."

Michael and Jeffrey discussed Donald again in January 2019, during the latter's first presidential term.

"Trump said he asked me to resign, never a member ever," Jeffrey wrote, "Of course he knew about the girls as he asked Ghislaine [Maxwell] to stop."

In a phone interview with ABC News after the emails were publicized, the author admitted he could not remember "the specific emails or the context" but reiterated he was "in an in-depth conversation with Epstein at that time about his relationship with Donald Trump."

Michael added, "I was trying at that time to get Epstein to talk about his relationship with Trump, and actually, he proved to be an enormously valuable source to me. Part of the context of this is that I was pushing Epstein at that point to go public with what he knew about Trump."

While Jeffrey knew Donald would become president, he was reportedly "appalled" by the idea, per Michael.

"I mean, this is, this is with some enormous irony, that [Epstein] would say Trump is a man who has no scruples, right?" he continued. "But these two guys were, I mean, there was an enmity between them because of this real estate deal that happened in 2004. But they had spent all of this time together, you know, well, more than a decade together."

As for the 2019 email, Michael noted Jeffrey had always maintained he was never a member of Mar-a-Lago and that Donald "never kicked him out."

"The basis of their falling out was a real estate deal," he exposed.

Michael dropped another bombshell in a Substack post on November 13, in which he claimed Jeffrey "believed" the POTUS was the one who tipped off police about the late pedophile's trafficking ring.

"Epstein believed that it was Trump, long aware of Epstein's sexual tastes, and a sometimes participant in them, who, as part of their exploding feud, alerted the police," Michael alleged.

Jeffrey was ultimately arrested upon arrival at Teterboro Airport in New Jersey on a private jet. He died in August 2019 while awaiting trial.

The Substack post also provided in-depth details about Jeffrey and Donald's falling-out.

"[Jeffrey] believed he was the top bidder at $36 million on a piece of real estate in Palm Beach" and "took his friend Trump to see the property." However, The Apprentice star reportedly "went around his friend Epstein's back and bid $41 million for the house."

"Epstein, with enough knowledge of Trump's finances to know he didn't have such money, concluded he was acting for someone else — likely part of a money laundering deal — and threatened to expose him," Michael maintained. "At that point, the Palm Beach police began to investigate the circumstances of the young girls who were constantly coming and going at Epstein's house."