From the beginning, when her husband Donald Trump was elected President in November 2016, Melania Trump has kept a low profile, preferring to remain in the shadows. Unless someone offered her a pile of money and then she’ll do whatever they need, apparently. A now-shuttered super PAC aligned with the former president paid Melania $155.000 in 2021, an expenditure filing revealed.

The filing, first reported by The New York Times in July 2023, shows that the now-defunct Make America Great Again, Again made the payment in December 2021 for a speaking engagement. The timing of the payment squares up with that of a fundraiser the ex-president held at Mar-a-Lago.

Pretty cozy, don’t you think? And I don’t know, but could this be a huge conflict of interest? Hmm.

The federal filings were a bit on the dicey side, and according to the Times, the group’s initial federal filings made no mention that the payment was paid to the former first lady. Instead, the expenses were listed as being associated with “Designer’s Management Agency,” which lists Melania as a client, The Hill reported on July 13, 2021.

The Hill requested a response from the Trump campaign in regards to the payment to his wife, who, for the most part, has remained out of sight since Trump launched his 2024 election bid. Make America Great Again, Again was originally the super PAC aligned with Trump when he left office, but the group folded, and in 2022 transferred nearly $10 million to Make America Great Again, Inc. which is now the main super PAC associated with Trump’s 2024 run.

But these two PACs aren’t the only ones affiliated with Trump that have done questionable things. There’s also Save America, a political committee that formed in the aftermath of the 2020 election, which paid Melania’s stylist thousands of dollars in 2022. The group was formed for contributions from supporters who fell for Trump’s election fraud claims. Those challenges failed time and again in court.

Of course, Trump and his family have been dogged by ethical questions as to whether they benefited from his time as president or his political operation, which have persisted to this day. Trump frequently traveled to Trump-owned properties during his time as president, and he and his GOP cronies have hosted numerous fundraisers at Mar-a-Lago and his properties in Bedminster, New Jersey in the past few years.

Of course, for anyone who knows Trump, or who writes about him, this is no big surprise. All of the members of the Trump family have done things that are pretty questionable. Barron Trump, the youngest of the family is only 17, but who knows what he’ll do when he becomes an adult. Melania successfully kept him away from prying eyes but he almost certainly saw some of his family members doing things that weren’t cool.

I hope he goes to a university where he has a chance to think for himself and chooses a calling that is beneficial to the world and not to the greedy and the wealthy.

But because his family is the way it is, I’m not hopeful for this young man.