UPDATE: Trump’s explosive new claim about Epstein at odds with past statements
What did Trump know and when did he know it?
On Tuesday, President Trump offered a detailed new explanation for his rift with child sex abuser Jeffrey Epstein. Speaking to reporters aboard Air Force One, Trump said that he had a falling out with Epstein because he "stole" a 16-year-old girl, Virginia Giuffre, from Trump's Mar-a-Lago spa. Giuffre, who committed suicide this April, was one of Epstein's most prominent victims.
This is the key exchange:
Q: Mr. President, Epstein has a certain reputation, obviously, but just curious, were some of the workers that were taken from you, were some of them young women?…
TRUMP: Well, I don't want to say, but everyone knows the people that were taken, and it was the concept of taking people that work for me is bad, but that story has been pretty well out there, and the answer is yes, they were. Yeah.
Q: Yes, they were young women? What did they do? Like, what were their jobs?
TRUMP: In the spa.
Q: In the spa?
TRUMP: Yeah, people that work in the spa. I have a great spa, one of the best spas in the world at Mar-a-Lago, and people were taken out of the spa, hired by him. In other words, gone. And other people would come and complain this guy is taking people from the spa. I didn't know that. And then when I heard about it, I told him, I said, "Listen, we don't want you taking our people."
Whether it was spa or not spa, I don't want them taking people, and he was fine, and then not too long after that, he did it again, and I said, out of here.
Q: Mr. President, did one of those stolen persons, did that include Virginia Giuffre?
TRUMP: I don't know. I think she worked at the spa. I think so. I think that was one of the people. Yeah. He stole her. And by the way, she had no complaints about us, as you know, none whatsoever.
Giuffre was sexually trafficked and abused by Epstein over a two-year period from 2000 to 2002. During that period, she frequently traveled with Epstein and Ghislaine Maxwell. It was Maxwell, Epstein's former girlfriend, who was also convicted of sex trafficking, who personally recruited Giuffre. In 2002, after attending a massage school in Thailand, Giuffre escaped.
So if it was Epstein's poaching of Giuffre that prompted the end of Trump's relationship with Epstein (or someone else “not too long after that”), the rift would have occurred around 2000.
This timeline is inconsistent with previous public statements made by Trump and his representatives.
In an October 2002 New York Magazine profile, Trump called Jeffrey Epstein "a terrific guy" who is "a lot of fun to be with." Trump added that Epstein "likes beautiful women as much as I do, and many of them are on the younger side." Trump would have made these comments about two years after Epstein allegedly "stole" Giuffre from the Mar-a-Lago spa.
In 2003, according to a Wall Street Journal report, Trump wrote Epstein a birthday message calling him his "pal" and concluded, "may every day be another wonderful secret."
Message pads obtained by investigators from Epstein's Palm Beach mansion and published by Vice News in 2016 indicate that Trump called Epstein at least twice in November 2004. That month, four years after Giuffre's recruitment, they squared off against each other to purchase a Palm Beach mansion, The Maison de l’Amitie. Trump secured the property with a bid of $41.35 million.
In July 2019, after Epstein was charged a second time, Trump said he "had a falling out" with Epstein and "haven’t spoken to him in 15 years." At the time, Trump Organization attorney Alan Garten told the Washington Post that Trump did not ban Epstein from Mar-a-Lago until 2007. According to the Washington Post, Garten said the ban was "a reaction to criminal charges that had been filed against Epstein" in July 2006. According to a 2020 book, The Grifter’s Club, Epstein was a member of Mar-a-Lago until October 2007. Neither Garten nor Trump mentioned any issues concerning Epstein's hiring of Mar-a-Lago staff.
Trump did not raise the issue of Epstein poaching his staff at a Monday press conference. He added the information about Giuffre's involvement on Tuesday. Earlier this month, White House Press Secretary Karoline Leavitt said that Trump kicked Epstein out of Mar-a-Lago for "being a creep."
The contradictory accounts raise a number of important questions: What occurred at the Mar-a-Lago spa, and what did Trump know about it? What actions did Trump actually take after learning Epstein had "stolen" underage girls from his club? Why has Trump offered several inconsistent accounts of his relationship with Epstein? What information might Maxwell, who Trump may pardon, have about all of these topics?
Let him talk. he just digs the hole deeper.
They are all tripping over each other with their lies. If one made-up excuse doesn’t work to explain it, they make up another. How do you know these are lies? Because they don’t dare tell the truth & condemn themselves for these heinous crimes. A pox on them all.