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Melania Trump's Web Site Scrubbed from the Internet

Online biographical info for the GOP candidate's wife was taken down amid speculation she doesn't really have a college degree, as she claimed.

Published July 29, 2016

MelaniaTrump.com, the former web site of GOP candidate Donald Trump's wife, is now completely inaccessible. The disappearance of Melania's web site sometime on 27 July 2016 raised many eyebrows due to its timing, coming just days after numerous sources questioned whether possible future first lady had actually earned an undergraduate degree in architecture from a Slovenian university, as her online biography previously claimed.

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The authors of the biography Melania Trump — The Inside Story: From a Slovenian Communist Village to the White House addressed this issue in a section of their book, speculating that Melania's educational credentials had been deliberately exaggerated to create the impression that she was "not just beautiful, but also smart and well-educated":

Later, in America, after meeting Donald Trump and officially becoming his partner, Melania Knauss told the media that she got her degree in architecture and design. This was almost certainly done in consultation with Trump and his advisors, as they were desperate to give off the impression that the Slovenian model was not just beautiful, but also smart and well-educated,

Things got complicated when some Slovenian journalists found and wrote that Melania Knauss was lying to the American media about her education. Since her thesis couldn't be found in the university system or the country's national register of publications, journalists started asking for direct and official answers from the heads of the Faculty of Architecture at the University of Ljubljana as to whether Melanija Knavs had graduated or not.

But the Faculty stayed tight-lipped, citing the strict Slovenian legislation on personal data protection, maintaining that it was Melania Knauss' personal business. Her sister Ines' thesis can't be found either.

After Melania was accused of plagiarism for delivering an address at the 2016 Republican National Convention that included portions strongly echoing a convention speech given by First Lady Michelle Obama eight years earlier, additional focus was directed at her claimed academic credentials.

MelaniaTrump.com now redirects to Trump.com, the main web site for the Trump Organization, even though the Biography portion of that site includes no information about, or even reference to, Melania Trump.

Melania responded to the additional controversy prompted by the disappearance of her web site by asserting that the site had been taken down because it "does not accurately reflect my current business and professional interests"

David Mikkelson founded the site now known as snopes.com back in 1994.

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