Melania desperate to go to Mar-a-Lago, wanted to know if she’d get any funds or staff after leaving White House
Melania Trump is done with the White House and just wants to pack up and leave, even as her husband continues to contest the results of the 2020 election and refuses to concede to President-elect Joe Biden.
According to a recent report by Kate Bennett, White House Correspondent for CNN and author of the unauthorized biography of the first lady, 'Free Melania,' Melania is already sorting out her belongings, deciding what to put in storage, items to be transported to President Donald Trump's Trump Tower in New York City and the what else to be tagged for shipment the couple's Mar-a-Lago in Palm Beach, Florida. She is apparently, doing all these while trying to discreetly find out what was available to her in terms of budget and staff allowance for post-White House life.
"She just wants to go home," said a source familiar with Melania's current state of mind told Bennett, adding that if the POTUS decides to run again in 2024, which seems like a distinct possibility now that Trump was denied a second term and the fact that he himself hinted as much to a cheering crowd at a White House Christmas party recently, it "might not go over well" with Melania.
Marcia Lee Kelly, who had previously run the White House Office of Administration and was brought on by the FLOTUS to her scant East Wing staff in April, was sent on a fact-finding mission by her boss to enquire from West Wing acquaintances and a member of the Office of Management and Budget where former first ladies had access to taxpayer dollars, two sources familiar with the discussions told Bennett.
The answer must have been disappointing as the only money that an ex-FLOTUS gets is a $20,000-a-year pension but only if her husband dies. Other than that, Melania will be entitled to a lifetime of protection from the Secret Service. But that's it. Trump, on the other hand, was entitled to an annual pension of $219,000 in addition to separate travel expenses and budgets to set up an official office and staff.
It is also highly unlikely that Melania will spend her post-White House days immersing herself in writing a memoir about her experience as the first lady such as former first ladies have done, for example, bestsellers like Michelle Obama's memoir, 'Becoming,' and Laura Bush's memoir, 'Spoken from the Heart.' However, a source in the publishing industry familiar with preliminary discussions, said that Melania was toying with the idea of "writing a photo-centric coffee table book about White House hospitality history, or one perhaps centered on the design projects she has completed while first lady."
"Mrs. Trump is focused on her role as first lady. Monday she unveiled her most current effort in preserving the White House by announcing the completion of the tennis pavilion. She also recently unveiled a new piece of art in the newly renovated Rose Garden. Her office just revealed this year's Christmas décor. Her schedule remains full with her duties as a mother, wife and first lady of the United States," the first lady's chief of staff Stephanie Grisham told CNN.