U.S. President Donald Trump said that Jeffrey Epstein “stole” Virginia Giuffre and other young women who worked at the spa at his Mar-a-Lago Club, which led to his falling-out with the financier.
The president spoke to reporters aboard Air Force One as he returned to Washington from a five-day trip to Scotland.
He said he fell out with Epstein because the disgraced financier recruited several of his employees, including Giuffre, Epstein’s most vocal accuser, from his Palm Beach resort.
Highlights
- Donald Trump claimed Jeffrey Epstein “stole” Virginia Giuffre and other young women from Mar-a-Lago’s spa, prompting their falling-out.
- Giuffre was recruited by Ghislaine Maxwell at Mar-a-Lago when she was 16 and later became a key accuser in Epstein’s case.
- Epstein remained a Mar-a-Lago member until at least 2007, contradicting claims he was kicked out earlier.
Jeffrey Epstein ‘stole’ women working at Mar-a-Lago, Donald Trump has claimed
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“Everyone knows the people that were taken,” Trump said. “People were taken out of the spa hired by him. 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 him taking people. And he was fine. And then not too long after that, he did it again. And I said, ‘Out of here.’”
Trump is under serious pressure from his MAGA supporters and the Democrats to release the Epstein files, amid revelations tying Trump and Epstein together at various events. This has raised questions about whether Trump himself is mentioned in the files and what he may have known.
Giuffre became one of Epstein’s most prominent accusers, alleging that she was sexually abused by him and trafficked to other powerful men, including Prince Andrew and former Harvard law professor Alan Dershowitz.
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She said in a lawsuit that she was recruited by Ghislaine Maxwell in 2000 to work for Epstein when she was 16 years old and working as a locker-room attendant at Mar-a-Lago.
Giuffre’s lawsuit was a key part of the Epstein investigation, and her 2015 lawsuit helped lead to the criminal charges that were ultimately brought against Ghislaine Maxwell.
Trump noted that Giuffre “had no complaints” about working at Mar-a-Lago. “She had no complaints about us, as you know, none whatsoever,” he said.
“She worked at the spa,” Trump said of Giuffre. “He [Epstein] stole her.”
Giuffre died by suicide in April this year. But her death, like Epstein’s in 2019, has fueled conspiracy theories that they were murders commissioned by powerful people mentioned in the Epstein files.
The late Virginia Giuffre was one of the women who worked at Trump’s Florida resort
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According to reports, Trump and Epstein socialized frequently and were considered to be close friends.
Jack O’Donnell, who served as president of the Trump Plaza Hotel and Casino in Atlantic City that Epstein and Trump frequented from 1987 to 1991, told CNN, “In my mind, Epstein was his best friend.”
Trump even hosted a ‘calendar girl’ contest at Mar-a-Lago with Epstein as his only guest.
Trump supposedly banned Epstein from Mar-a-Lago in 2004. Before then, Epstein and Maxwell were photographed at the club, including at social events with Trump and his then-girlfriend Melania Knauss, who is now the first lady.
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In recent weeks, senior White House aides suggested that Epstein was banned from the Mar-a-Lago club for inappropriate behavior of a sexual nature.
In a statement last week, White House communications director Steven Cheung said Trump “kicked him out of his club for being a creep.”
When asked about the apparent discrepancy between Trump and Cheung’s reasons for Epstein being banned, Trump said they are “the same thing.”
“You know, it’s sort of a little bit of the same thing,” he said aboard Air Force One on Monday.
“But no, he took people that work for me, and I told him, ‘Don’t do it anymore.’ And he did it. I said, ‘Stay the hell out of here.’”
Epstein was a member of the Mar-a-Lago Club until 2007, contradicting claims he was kicked out three years earlier
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Records indicate that Epstein remained on Mar-a-Lago’s membership list until at least 2007, more than a year after his first arrest on charges of soliciting prostitution from a minor.
Trump has previously given different reasons for cutting ties with Epstein. He once said Epstein was a “creep.” Other reports say their rift was linked to a dispute over a valuable Palm Beach property that both men wanted to buy.
In 2002, two years after Giuffre was recruited by Maxwell, Trump told New York Magazine: “I’ve known Jeff for 15 years. Terrific guy. He’s a lot of fun to be with. It is even said that he likes beautiful women as much as I do, and many of them are on the younger side.”
Maxwell, who is serving a 20-year sentence for sex trafficking and conspiracy, met with Department of Justice officials last week to discuss her case.
She is scheduled to testify before Congress on August 11, but her lawyers asked for immunity in exchange for her testimony. Lawmakers have denied that request.