Melania Trump Used Private Email Accounts While in the White House, Says Her Former Friend

Stephanie Winston Wolkoff said in an interview Tuesday that Melania Trump used email accounts that were not from the White House to conduct government business

First Lady Melania Trump. Photo: Chip Somodevilla/Getty

Melania Trump has been accused by her former friend and advisor of using private emails while in the White House.

In an interview about her new book, Melania and Me: The Rise and Fall of My Friendship with the First Lady, Stephanie Winston Wolkoff told The Washington Post that both she and Melania used email accounts that were not from the White House.

"Melania and I both didn’t use White House emails," Winston Wolkoff said.

While the First Lady is not technically a government employee, Winston Wolkoff provided the Post with messages she says was from Melania concerning government business, including hiring, scheduling, logistics and finances, dated after Donald Trump's inauguration.

Winston Wolkoff told the Post that she did not include the revelation about Melania's emails in her book because she was focused on other topics.

Melania's spokesperson did not immediately respond to PEOPLE's request for comment on the allegations regarding the emails.

Stephanie Winston Wolkoff (left) and Melania Trump in 2008. BILLY FARRELL/Patrick McMullan via Getty

In 2017, Ivanka Trump — who Winston Wolkoff says had an intense rivalry with Melania — reportedly used a personal email account to send a number of emails discussing government business as well, breaking federal records rules in the process.

Ivanka allegedly claimed at the time that she wasn’t aware of the rules and that the emails were sent before she was officially a White House employee and given an official White House email. An investigation allegedly found that she continued to use her personal email after March 2017, when she became an official White House employee, PEOPLE previously reported.

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The allegations of private email use in Trump's White House come after he routinely lambasted Hillary Clinton during the 2016 election for allegedly using a private email server when she was Secretary of State.

Former White House ethics lawyer Richard Painter called this "total hypocrisy."

"They got elected acting as if Hillary Clinton ought to be in jail for using the wrong email," he told the Post in the report Tuesday.

Melania's chief of staff, Stephanie Grisham, told PEOPLE in a statement on Monday that Winston Wolkoff's book is "full of mistruths and paranoia" and "based on some imagined need for revenge."

"Wolkoff builds herself up while belittling and blaming everyone she worked with, yet she still managed to be the victim. Sadly, this is a deeply insecure woman whose need to be relevant defies logic," Grisham said.

However, Winston Wolkoff maintained in her interview with the Post on Tuesday that everything she writes in the tell-all is true.