Melissa Carone says she 'doesn't care' about haters as Trump 'LOVES' her, denies she was drunk during hearing
President Donald J. Trump's star witness in the Michigan voter fraud case has insisted that the commander-in-chief "loves" her and that she's "not a liar." 33-year-old Melissa Carone gave her testimony for the Trump campaign's legal team – spearheaded by Rudy Giuliani and Jenna Ellis – as she sat before Michigan's House Oversight Committee on Wednesday after several claims of systemic voter fraud tainted the November 3 election, The Sun reported.
Carone became a sensation among Trump supporters as she hurled several accusations of mass criminality at the polling center she was assigned to during the election. Addressing the committee, she claimed to witness poll workers running ballots through voting machines "thousands of times." However, a judge later ruled her testimony as "not credible."
Speaking to The Sun on Wednesday, Carone said, "I'm not a liar." Anti-Trump critics alleged Carone was inebriated during the hearing, thereby inspiring a 'Saturday Night Live' skit by Cecily Strong in which she portrayed Carone as being drunk. “Even though it’s a fraudulent erection, it can still get you pregnant,” Strong quipped while impersonating Carone. Carone, however, told The Sun that she "doesn't care" about her haters and touted how Trump had appreciated her testimony last Wednesday. "I speak to Rudy (Giuliani) once a week. He said, 'Trump loves ya'," she told the paper. Trump had earlier retweeted a recap of Carone's testimony, commenting, “Melissa is great".
However, Carone's credibility as a witness was questioned after it emerged that she had "completed probation for a computer crime linked to a sex tape" shortly before Election Day. "This is not about my fiancé’s ex-wife that's upset about receiving a video, which I will say I did not send (to her)," Carone told The Sun in her defense. "I will not divert the attention onto myself and away from what this is truly about.”
A spokeswoman for the Wayne County, Michigan, prosecutor’s office said that Melissa had been charged with first-degree obscenity and using a computer to commit a crime after she reportedly sent "pornographic videos to her fiancé’s ex-wife" and "framed" her for stealing them. She was able to reduce her charge to disorderly conduct and received 12 months of probation as part of a plea deal. That said, her probation ended just weeks before she was hired to assist Dominion Voting Systems as an IT contractor in Detroit on Election Day. "They can come out with anything they want about my past," Carone told The Sun. "Everybody has a past. Look what they've done to Trump. Look at Biden's past. Look at his family. Biden's son (Hunter) got a stripper pregnant when he smoked crack. It's not about me."
The Daily Mail reported on Tuesday that Carone used to dance at the Bada Bing club – a tribute to the eponymous strip club owned by mobster Tony Soprano in HBO's hit show The Sopranos. However, Carone did not confirm this and told The Sun she had previously "waitressed at Hooters." "I am sorry but that’s so far fetched I’m not commenting on the left trying to discredit me," she said. When prodded further, Carone said she "was just a kid" at the time and that she "went a little crazy" upon turning 18. "I grew up in a very structured family," she said. "I wasn't allowed to do anything. I wasn't even allowed to listen to music when I was a teenager so when I got out into the world ... everybody was 18 once, that's all there is to it."
According to Carone, a lot has changed in her life since then. "If that was who I am today then it would be different, maybe I wouldn't be credible," she explained to The Sun. "But I have a family, I have children (who) go to private schools."