Hold the phone and sit down for this one. The media have a new “bombshell” report on Melania Trump that supposedly shows just how hypocritical and lawless the Trump administration is. No, she didn’t get caught burning stuff down like Joe Biden’s supporters. Rather, The Washington Post has an exclusive claiming that Melania used a private email while serving as First Lady.

Exclusive: Melania Trump used private email accounts while in the White House, the first lady’s former colleague and friend says https://t.co/oP5K1PRnRW

— The Washington Post (@washingtonpost) September 2, 2020

Melania Trump used private email accounts while in the White House, says former colleague and friend, via ⁦@jadabird⁩ https://t.co/RqmzKYTov9

— Seung Min Kim (@seungminkim) September 2, 2020

This is the same “former colleague and friend” who claims to have recordings of Melania bashing her husband, so that should give you an idea of how decent of person Stephanie Winston Wilkoff is. This woman is looking to profit just like all the other grifters who’ve left the Trump orbit to write books. They know the #resistance wing will reward them handsomely for putting just about anything down on paper, whether it’s backed by evidence or not.

Regardless, I’m struck by the tone and comparisons made by the Post here. This is absolutely nothing like Hillary Clinton, though the obvious insinuation here is to shill for the former Secretary of State and assert she did nothing wrong with her emails. That’s, of course, completely false.

For starters, Melania Trump is not a government official. She can use whatever email she wants as long as anything dealing with government business is archived, which there’s no indication it wasn’t. Secondly, it is not illegal for a government official to have a private email account. That’s the bait and switch we’ve seen from the media before regarding Jared Kushner and Ivanka Trump as well. Rather, the issue with a private email is if you setup your own server and traffic in illegally moved and kept classified information. That is what Hillary Clinton did and it’s why nobody from Jared Kushner to Colin Powell compares to her situation. Any attempts to make those comparisons are just desperate deflection.

The media simply can not let go of 2016. They can not fathom that it was actually proper for them to focus on a candidate doing something clearly illegal. Instead, they now want to re-write history and pretend it was somehow a mistake to even talk about Hillary’s emails. That shows just how much bias there is. But to use this ridiculous attack against Melania Trump to meet their ends is pathetic. The First Lady did nothing wrong and should not be painted as doing so.

(Please follow me on Twitter! @bonchieredstate)