President Donald Trump on Tuesday mentioned he ended his friendship with Jeffrey Epstein as a result of the disgraced financier “stole” younger girls working at his Mar-a-Lago spa too many occasions — together with a 17-year-old Virginia Giuffre.
Talking aboard Air Power One whereas getting back from his five-day golf vacation in Scotland, Trump was requested about feedback he’d revamped the weekend suggesting that he’d banned the disgraced financier from his Palm Seashore membership for hiring away staff.
He confirmed that Epstein “took those who work from me” and did so once more regardless of being admonished to not poach Mar-a-Lago employees by Trump.
“He took those who work for me, and I informed him, do not do it anymore. And he did it. I mentioned, Keep the hell out of right here,” he mentioned.
Pressed additional on whether or not the employees poached by Epstein included Virginia Giuffre, a Mar-a-Lago pool attendant who was recruited and groomed by Epstein affiliate Ghislaine Maxwell and raped by Epstein on quite a few events after being ostensibly employed as a “masseuse,” Trump confirmed that the staff who factored within the dispute resulting in the top of his friendship with Epstein included younger girls.
“I informed him, I mentioned, Hear, we do not need you taking our folks, whether or not it was spa or not spa. I do not need him taking folks. And he was positive. After which not too lengthy after that, he did it once more. And I mentioned, out of right here,” he mentioned, describing Epstein as having “stolen” his spa employees.
Requested point-blank if certainly one of them was Giuffre, who died by suicide earlier this 12 months, he replied: “I believe she labored on the spa. I believe so. I believe that was one of many folks.”
“Yeah, he stole her,” he mentioned.
Trump added that Giuffre, who additionally accused different highly effective males of raping her in the course of the time she was related to Epstein, “had no complaints” about him.
The president’s new declare in regards to the the reason why he ended a years-long friendship with Epstein contradicts earlier statements made by him over time with respect to why he lower off contact with the infamous intercourse offender, who was arrested in March 2019 on federal intercourse trafficking expenses and died by suicide in a Manhattan jail cell whereas awaiting trial.
He beforehand mentioned he lower off contact with Epstein as a result of he was a “creep,” citing a 2009 conviction for soliciting underage prostitutes. Trump and folks near him have routinely cited the top of his friendship with Epstein when trying to distance the president from the disgraced intercourse trafficker.
Trump says he ended his friendship with Epstein over the intercourse trafficker hiring away Virginia Giuffre (heart) from his Mar-a-Lago membership (US Division of Justice)
The previous couple of weeks of Trump’s presidency have been consumed by scandal over his administration’s dealing with of longstanding calls from his supporters to launch recordsdata related to the instances of Epstein and Maxwell, who’s at the moment serving a two-decade sentence for intercourse trafficking expenses in a Florida jail.
Requested in regards to the matter on Monday throughout a bilateral assembly with Prime Minister Sir Keir Starmer, Trump went on an prolonged rant throughout which he accused Democrats of getting fabricated the entire problem for political achieve.
He referred to as the bipartisan clamor for the paperwork “a hoax that is been constructed up means past proportion” and accused his predecessor of getting tampered with the notorious case recordsdata.
“These recordsdata had been run by the worst scum on Earth. They had been run by Comey, they had been run by Garland, they had been run by Biden, and the entire folks that truly ran the federal government, together with the auto pen. These recordsdata had been run for 4 years by these folks. If that they had something, I assume they’d have launched it,” he mentioned.
He additionally mentioned that he turned down an invite to Jeffrey Epstein’s infamous island, characterizing the choice as “certainly one of my superb moments.”
“I by no means had the privilege of going to his island, and I did flip it down, however lots of people in Palm Seashore had been invited to his island,” he mentioned. “ I turned it down. I did not need to go to his island.”