Michael Wolff — the author behind Fire and Fury — sued Melania Trump after her lawyers threatened him with a one billion dollar defamation lawsuit over comments he made linking her to Jeffrey Epstein.

A federal judge just completely shut down his lawsuit — accusing Wolff of gamesmanship, forum shopping and abusing the legal process by trying to beat Melania to the courthouse and get a ruling in his favor before she could sue him herself. The judge said Wolff was essentially trying to short-circuit the normal legal process — and threw the entire case out. Melania Trump did not say a single word publicly. She let the judge do it for her — and that is exactly the kind of quiet power that her critics have never been able to figure out.