First Lady Melania Trump remains in a legal dispute with Michael Wolff, a longtime author and reporter who has written extensively about President Donald Trump’s political career. Wolff says the case has revealed what he called “Trump law in a nutshell” and illustrated how the Trump family uses the courts to “harass and intimidate” opponents.

Wolff filed an anti-SLAPP lawsuit against the first lady earlier this year after she threatened to sue him over remarks he made about her alleged connections to Jeffrey Epstein. Anti-SLAPP laws are designed to protect people from lawsuits that may chill speech on matters of public concern, but Vyskocil found Wolff’s filing was premature because Melania Trump had not yet brought a defamation case. In May, New York District Judge Mary Kay Vyskocil, who was appointed by Trump, dismissed Wolff’s suit. Vyskocil ruled that Wolff would have to wait until Melania Trump filed an actual defamation lawsuit before bringing his own response.

Vyskocil later cautioned the first lady against pursuing sanctions against Wolff’s legal team or attempting to make them pay her legal fees. The judge said the legal standard for such a motion was high and urged the parties to consider resolving the matter outside the court system.

“I wonder if it’s in the interest of the parties to continue litigating in this court,” Vyskocil said. “I think sometimes people get so caught up in the fervor of the moment that they don’t really stop and think about the cost-benefit analysis of motions that are contemplated and the burden you put a court to.”

Despite that warning, the first lady’s legal team filed a motion for sanctions against Wolff this past week, moving ahead with her effort to seek payment of legal costs. Sanctions requests generally ask a court to punish conduct deemed improper or frivolous, and Vyskocil’s earlier remarks underscored that such motions face a demanding threshold.

“Plaintiff filed a patently meritless lawsuit and used it to harass Mrs. Trump in public,” the motion stated. “Plaintiff and his counsel asserted a legally frivolous claim, propped it up with factual contentions that lacked any evidentiary support, and used them to run a political and commercial campaign. They should pay for Mrs. Trump’s fees and expenses incurred for the process they abused.”

Wolff discussed the latest development during the newest episode of his Daily Beast podcast, “Inside Trump’s Head.” He said one might have expected Melania Trump and her lawyers to have their “tail between their legs” after Vyskocil’s warning, but “instead, they actually have gone through.”

According to Wolff, the decision to press forward exposes the broader legal strategy associated with the president’s approach to courtroom battles.

“And, of course, nobody knows what’s gonna happen there,” Wolff said. “But the larger point is that they will have added months and months and months to the legal calendar... and countless expense. So that is... Trump law in a nutshell—delay, harass, intimidate, exhaust, and avoid... testifying at all costs.”

The dispute now turns on whether the court accepts Melania Trump’s argument that Wolff’s dismissed case warrants financial penalties, rather than on the underlying remarks that prompted her initial threat to sue. Elsewhere in the episode, Wolff claimed that his lawsuit caught the White House off guard, citing conversations with a source inside the administration. He also said his success in raising $837,000 through GoFundMe for the legal fight had scared “the bejesus out of... Melania and her lawyers.”