Donald Trump has been forced to sit quietly in court twice in recent weeks to face felony charges, and on both occasions has sought solace in the company of family, friends, and his devoted supporters. However, one prominent supporter of the Republican former president has been conspicuously absent: his wife, Melania. Trump surrendered to US Marshals in Miami on Tuesday to face a slew of federal charges stemming from his alleged mishandling of government secrets since leaving the White House. The ex-president was accompanied by a large entourage (the motorcade to the courthouse consisted of six SUVs), and crowds of Trump supporters converged with brightly coloured banners and messages of solidarity. But his wife was nowhere to be found, raising eyebrows among Trump supporters by declining to accompany him to court or even issue a supportive statement from a distance. “Americans are used to seeing political wives literally standing by their men in times of scandal and crisis,” said Katherine Jellison, a history professor at Ohio University who specializes in US first ladies. “So Melania’s physical absence during her husband’s recent public appearances is particularly noticeable.” The former first lady was seen leaving Trump Tower a day earlier as he was flying from his summer home in New Jersey to Florida, and making her way to various appointments around Manhattan, flanked by her Secret Service detail. She was also absent when Trump was charged in a Manhattan court in April with misrepresenting hush money payments to buy a porn star’s silence about an alleged sexual encounter. And, despite living in Florida and having her own father in the front row, the 53-year-old Slovenian skipped her husband’s fiery post-arraignment speech back at the couple’s Mar-a-Lago beach club. Trump paid tribute to his family but did not mention his wife, reigniting speculation about the couple’s “transactional” marriage that ex-Vogue magazine executive and former Melania confidante Stephanie Winston Wolkoff raised in 2020. Days later, Melania Trump’s office issued a cryptic statement warning readers to be wary of news articles about her that rely on “unnamed sources… cited to bolster the author’s claims.” After learning that he had been indicted for the second time last Thursday, Trump dined at his Bedminster, New Jersey, golf course and, according to several New York media outlets, played his favorite tunes from a DJ booth at the clubhouse. Melania was photographed hours earlier by The New York Post entering Trump Tower in Manhattan, and she did not make the 90-minute drive to join her husband. The office of the former first lady — who married Trump in 2005 — did not respond to AFP’s request for comment, but Wolkoff told celebrity gossip outfit Page Six that Melania’s silence was her way of retaining her dignity. “Melania lives in an ivory tower of denial… Her silence is deliberate, it is her weapon of choice and her protective armor,” Wolkoff said.