A group of president-elect Donald Trump’s senior staffers has released a statement countering any possible claims that arise as author Michael Wolff compiles evidence and anecdotes for his newest book about Trump.

Wolff has been in the news lately, as he uncovered audio recordings of conversations he’d had with deceased sex offender Jeffrey Epstein. He also spoke of a slew of previously unseen pictures of the two together.

Since the news of Epstein’s crimes became public, there has been a race among former friends and acquaintances to distance themselves from him and his partner Ghislaine Maxwell. Maxwell was found guilty of the same crimes that Epstein was accused of before he was found dead in his prison cell awaiting trial.

Maxwell lost her appeal in September, but not before Trump once again wished her well in court. “Yeah, I wish her well,” he told Axios’ Jonathan Swan. “I’d wish you well. I’d wish a lot of people well. Good luck. Let them prove somebody was guilty.”

Guilt is something that Trump struggles with himself. He was found guilty of 34 felonies back in May, despite what some of your MAGA friends might think. Many believe that “convicted felon” is only a term applied to someone who’s been sentenced, but that’s not what it says in the penal code of New York, where the verdict came down.

But being a convicted felon already, and set to become the next president — we’re still not quite sure how that works — Trump can scarcely afford anymore scandals to beset his already troubled legal history.

Enter Team Trump.

A number of us have received inquiries from the disgraced author Michael Wolff, whose previous work can only be described as fiction. He is a known peddler of fake news who routinely concocts situations, conversations, and conclusions that never happened.

As a group, we have decided not to respond to his bad faith inquiries, and we encourage others to completely disregard whatever nonsense he eventually publishes. Consider this our blanket response to whatever he writes.

Perfect. Having come from support staff, Trump can claim that he had nothing to do with the statement, which of course would make him look extremely guilty of something, coming out before Wolff has even announced his latest project.

They simply issued the release because Wolff has been out making noise again.

After his first real tell-all on Trump, Fire and Fury, much was made of the fact that all of the insider knowledge that Wolff had gained for that book was from people within the Trump White House during his first term.

The book painted a picture of a chaotic and dysfunctional White House in which “100% of the people around him” believed he was unfit for office. As an example of one of the anecdotes in the book, Wolff says that campaign advisor Sam Nunberg once tried to explain the Constitution to Trump, but couldn’t get past the Fourth Amendment.

In essence, the book portrayed Donald Trump as a figurehead, too inept to carry out the office of the presidency, something that most people came to see firsthand by the end of Trump’s term in 2021. He had no idea what he was doing in policy, either foreign or domestic, constantly confused people, places, and events, and even labored under the mistaken impression that Article II of the Constitution gave him unlimited power:

TRUMP: “Then I have an Article 2, where I have the right to do whatever I want as president.”

(Article 2 does not in fact empower the president to do whatever they want.) pic.twitter.com/qIFP1AbHw6

— Aaron Rupar (@atrupar) July 23, 2019

Given Wolff’s unprecedented access to the White House during that time — he was even present for the dismissal of James Comey as FBI Director — Trump and his entourage are now much more cautious. And the material that Wolff has already presented as possible entries in an upcoming book hint at much more serious things yet to be revealed.

Put more plainly, if Wolff is will to use this as a teaser quote from Epstein…

He is charming; he is able to convince people. It’s very much like [Bill] Clinton. Both Bill and Donald have the ability to go over to a fat, ugly woman, say, ‘You are the most beautiful thing I’ve ever seen.’ He tells everybody what they want to hear. And that is charming.

…then what ELSE might he have up his sleeve?

The most interesting part of the way Trump has reacted to Wolff is that he hasn’t ever tried to sue him for saying untrue or defamatory things. Trump is well-known for his history of being litigious, and he even sued his own sexual assault victim, E. Jean Carroll, back when he thought he was still going to get away with his attack on her.

We’ll find out how he takes whatever Wolff comes up with.