Melania Trump, wife of US Republican candidate Donald Trump, is suing the British Daily Mail tabloid paper for reporting that she may have been an illegal US immigrant and worked as an escort in the 1990s, The Guardian reported on Tuesday.

 

Charles Harder, an attorney at Harder, Mirell and Abrams - the firm representing Trump – told The Guardian that the report allegedly claiming Trump’s wife, the US’s potential first lady, was an escort was “100% false” and “highly damaging to her reputation, and personally hurtful.”

 

“Outright lying about her in this way exceeds all bounds of appropriate news reporting and human decency,” he said.

 

The lawyer confirmed to the Guardian that Mrs. Trump was also considering suing other publications, such as Politico and the Week, both multinational organizations with branches in the United States.

 

Politico had previously run a story in which it questioned her early immigrant status, which Mrs. Trump vehemently denied.

 

Britain-based magazine The Week published similar reports.

 

The speculation surrounding Mrs. Trump’s immigrant status – if proven to be correct - will backfire on her husband’s campaign given his hardline pledge to pursue a crackdown on all illegal immigrants if elected as president.

 

Trump’s wife herself has said she supports his stance. “I never thought to stay here without papers,” she said in a February interview with MSNBC.

 

The lawsuit also comes in the wake of Trump cracking down on media outlets he considers biased, banning several, Politico included, from covering his rallies.