WASHINGTON, D.C. — The Department of Justice is suing Stephanie Winston Wolkoff, the author of tell-all book "Melania and Me" and a former friend and top aide to first lady Melania Trump, alleging that she breached a confidentiality agreement by publishing her book, according to a lawsuit filed on Tuesday.

The filing, first reported by Reuters, claims that Wolkoff failed to submit a draft of "Melania and Me" to the government for review.

In a statement to CNN, Wolkoff said that she "will not be deterred by these bullying tactics."

"The President and First Lady's use of the US Department of Justice to silence me is a violation of my First Amendment Rights and a blatant abuse of the government to pursue their own personal interests and goals," she told CNN. "I fulfilled all of the terms of the Gratuitous Service Agreement and the confidentiality provisions ended when the White House terminated the agreement. With the publication of my book, 'Melania and Me: The Rise and Fall of My Friendship with The First Lady,' I have exercised my right to free expression."

In the book, Wolkoff says she wished she had never met the first lady, who is a former fashion model. Wolkoff, a New York-based event planner, said the pair first met in 2003 in the hallways of Vogue magazine, where Wolkoff worked. 

Wolkoff helped produce Trump’s inauguration and later worked for the first lady as an unpaid White House adviser. She devotes two of the book’s 11 chapters to planning for the January 2017 inauguration, describing the committee responsible for raising money to pay for several days of events as beset with organizational and communications issues that complicated her work.

She says she repeatedly raised questions about spending but she eventually came to be viewed as the problem. Trump’s Presidential Inaugural Committee raised nearly $107 million for the lavish event, an unprecedented inaugural price tag nearly twice that of President Barack Obama’s inauguration in 2009.

Some of those involved in or aware of the committee’s work told The Associated Press in September 2017 that the orchestration of the inauguration was marred by last-minute decisions, staffing turnover and little financial oversight.

Wolkoff said that she made recordings of her conversations with the first lady because she needed evidence to protect herself amid questions about the costs of President Donald Trump’s inauguration.

First lady Melania Trump expressed support for the care that migrant children separated from their families received in U.S. detention centers, suggesting the facilities were better than what they had at home with their parents, in a series of recordings that aired on CNN.

“The kids, they say, ‘Wow I will have my own bed? I will sleep on the bed? I will have a cabinet for my clothes.’ It’s so sad to hear, but they didn’t have that in their own countries. They sleep on the floor,” she said in one excerpt. “They are taken care of nicely there. But you know, yeah, they are not with parents. It’s sad. But when they come here alone or with coyotes or illegally, you know, you need to do something.”

At another point she opined that some immigrants seeking asylum in the U.S. were coached about what to say. “They go over and they say like, ‘Oh, we will be killed by a gang member, we will be, you know, it’s so dangerous.’ So they are allowed to stay here.” She added: “Some of them are using that line.”

Wolkoff left the White House in February 2018 when her contract was terminated. 

The White House has previously dismissed her book as “full of mistruths and paranoia.”

The Associated Press contributed to this report.