Melania Trump’s lawyers say she had an awesome opportunity to cash in on Donnie’s new job by promoting her brand.

An attorney for first lady Melania Trump argued in a lawsuit filed Monday that an article falsely alleging that she once worked for an escort service hurt her chance to establish “multimillion dollar business relationships” during the years in which she would be “one of the most photographed women in the world.”

Funny they should mention it, because in fact she’s not supposed to do that. It’s considered an eth-ics vi-o-la-tion.

The suit — filed Monday in New York Supreme Court, a state trial court, in Manhattan — against Mail Media, the owner of the Daily Mail, said the article published by the Daily Mail and its online division last August caused Trump’s brand, Melania, to lose “significant value” as well as “major business opportunities that were otherwise available to her.” The suit said the article had damaged her “unique, once in a lifetime opportunity” to “launch a broad-based commercial brand.”

“These product categories would have included, among other things, apparel accessories, shoes, jewelry, cosmetics, hair care, skin care and fragrance,” according to the lawsuit, which was filed on Trump’s behalf by California attorney Charles Harder.

Well that’s absolutely what all this is about – helping Melania Trump flog her shampoos and perfumes. Now if she were promoting dog food and rain coats, that would be another story, but since it’s classy shit like jewelry and shoes, the office is graced by her money-maximizing hustles.

The suit filed Monday did not spell out a plan by Trump to market her products during her tenure as first lady, but mentioned that her reputation had suffered just as she was experiencing a “multi-year term” of elevated publicity. The suit says the Daily Mail article “impugned her fitness to perform her duties as First Lady of the United States.”

A similar suit had been filed against Mail Media and a local blogger in Maryland.

A Maryland judge recently dismissed the case against the Daily Mail on jurisdictional grounds. On Tuesday, the law firm representing the first lady said she had settled with the Gaithersburg blogger, Webster Tarpley, who agreed to apologize and pay her a “substantial sum,” said a statement from the law firm representing Melania Trump.

She extorted “a substantial sum” from a random blogger who blogged about someone else’s reporting about her. She must be almost as shitty as Trump is. They deserve each other.

Richard Painter, a White House ethics counsel under President George W. Bush and a critic of President Trump’s decision to retain ownership of his real estate and branding empire while in office, said Monday that he was troubled by the suggestion in the new suit that Melania Trump intended to profit from her public role.

“There has never been a first lady of the United States who insinuated that she intended to make a lot of money because of the ‘once-in-a-lifetime’ opportunity of being first lady,” said Painter, who is participating in a lawsuit claiming that President Trump’s relationship with his company violates a constitutional provision barring presidents from taking money or gifts from foreign ­governments.

I hate these sleazes.