Washington CNN  — 

First lady Melania Trump penned an essay on the White House website on Friday that railed against what she described as the “pettiness” of the media and ex-friend and former adviser Stephanie Winston Wolkoff.

This is the second personal essay Trump has written in recent days. Yet rather than highlight her own specific efforts to help children via her “Be Best” initiative, she continued to draw attention to the Wolkoff tell-all book, which was first published September 1.

The fast pace of the news cycle, including the President and first lady’s coronavirus diagnosis, the global pandemic, economic crisis and the forthcoming US presidential election could have overshadowed much of the book’s fallout. But with the new essay, Trump is in actuality renewing focus on what she describes as Wolkoff’s “salacious claims.”

Wolkoff’s book, “Melania and Me: The Rise and Fall of My Friendship with the First Lady,” details the fallout from Wolkoff’s working and personal relationship with Melania Trump, including private conversations between the two.

Trump did not name Wolkoff in the essay, but did not hold back, claiming she “hardly knew” her.

“We all know that more often than not, information that could be helpful to children is lost in the noise made by self-serving adults. I have most recently found this to be the case as major news outlets eagerly covered salacious claims made by a former contractor who advised my office. A person who said she ‘made me’ even though she hardly knew me, and someone who clung to me after my husband won the Presidency,” Trump wrote.

She continued: “This is a woman who secretly recorded our phone calls, releasing portions from me that were out of context, then wrote a book of idle gossip trying to distort my character. Her ‘memoir’ included blaming me for her ailing health from an accident she had long ago, and for bad news coverage that she brought upon herself and others. Never once looking within at her own dishonest behavior and all in an attempt to be relevant. These kinds of people only care about their personal agenda – not about helping others.”

Trump criticized the media for choosing to “to focus their coverage on pettiness over my positive work.” Trump’s chief of staff, Stephanie Grisham, linked to the story on her official Twitter account and specifically called out news organizations.

And in an essay that only calls the media’s attention to the weeks-old Wolkoff book, the first lady reiterated: “I would remind the media that they have the choice of focusing on our next generation.”

The essay comes days after the Justice Department filed a lawsuit against Wolkoff in the Washington, DC, circuit court, the complaint claiming Wolkoff breached a confidentiality agreement with her book.