By DARLENE SUPERVILLE
Melania Trump is heading to Capitol Hill on Monday for a roundtable discussion with members of Congress and others on a bill could speed the removal of intimate imagery posted online without an individual’s consent, or revenge porn.
It will be her first solo public appearance since she resumed the role of first lady on Jan. 20.
The “Take It Down Act,” sponsored by Sens. Ted Cruz, R-Texas, and Amy Klobuchar, D-Minn., passed the Senate in February. Melania Trump’s public show of support for the legislation could help get it through the Republican-controlled House and to President Donald Trump’s desk to become law.
Cruz is among the lawmakers joining the first lady for the discussion in the Capitol’s Mansfield Room. Online safety advocates and survivors of non-consensual intimate imagery were also invited.
In the first Trump administration, Melania Trump led a youth initiative she called “ Be Best,” which included a focus on online safety. She has said she’s interested in reviving the program.
The first lady has made few public appearances since the start of the administration.
She accompanied the president to survey natural disaster sites in North Carolina and California at the end of inauguration week in January, and on Feb. 22 joined her husband to host the nation’s governors for a black-tie dinner at the White House.
The first lady is expected at the Capitol again on Tuesday for the president’s prime-time address to a joint session of Congress.
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