Did Trump Just Confess He Learned about Virginia Giuffre before Jeffrey Epstein Recruited Someone Else at Mar-a-Lago?
Update: In a Gaggle today, Trump did just confess this is about Giuffre and others.
Reporter 1: I’m just curious. Were some of the workers that were taken from you — were some of them young women?
Trump: Were some of them?
Reporter 1: Were some of them young women?
Trump: Well, I don’t wanna say, but everyone knows the people that were taken. It was, the concept of taking people that work for me is bad. But that story’s been pretty well out there. And the answer is, yes, they were.
[inaudible]
Trump: In the spa. 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 um, 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 they were 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.
Reporter 2: Mr. President, did one of those stolen persons, did that include Virginia Giuffre?
Trump: Uh, 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.
Yesterday, Donald Trump offered an entirely new explanation for his falling out with sex trafficker Jeffrey Epstein. Not a fight, in 2004, over the purchase of the property from which Trump would soon earn a tidy profit from Russian oligarch Dmitry Rybolovlev.
For the better part of two decades starting in the late 1980s, Jeffrey Epstein and Donald Trump swam in the same social pool. They were neighbors in Florida. They jetted from LaGuardia to Palm Beach together. They partied at Trump’s Mar-a-Lago Club and dined at Epstein’s Manhattan mansion.
And then, in 2004, they were suddenly rivals, each angling to snag a choice Palm Beach property, an oceanfront manse called Maison de l’Amitie — the House of Friendship — that was being sold out of bankruptcy.
[snip]
It is unclear whether Trump and Epstein were in contact after the house sale. That month, Trump left two messages for Epstein at his home in Palm Beach, according to records obtained by Vice News — the last known interaction between the two men.
Four years after he bought the Gosman mansion, Trump sold it to Russian businessman Dmitry Rybolovlev for $95 million, more than doubling his investment.
Not a generic recoil from “a creep” (as if a guy who wanted to make Matt Gaetz his Attorney General would be turned off by Epstein).
But instead because Epstein poached two of his employees. Or rather and perhaps more importantly, Epstein “stole” one employee, Trump told him not to do it again, and then Epstein stole another.
What caused the breach with him? Very easy to explain. But I don’t want to waste your time by explaining it. But for years I wouldn’t talk to Jeffrey Epstein. I wouldn’t talk. Because he did something that was inappropriate. He hired help. And I said, don’t ever do that again. He stole people that worked for me. I said, don’t ever do that again. He did it again. And I threw him out of the place. Persona non grata. I threw him out. And that was it.
Epstein did, in fact, steal at least one employee from Trump: Virginia Giuffre, back in the summer of 2000 (and so years before even the most public date given for when Trump broke with Epstein, 2004). Within a year, Maxwell allegedly forced Giuffre to have sex with Prince Andrew on three occasions.
But a 2020 book told of another, later, incident when Epstein recruited (or attempted to) at Mar-a-Lago, that time with the daughter of a member.
Donald Trump severed ties with Jeffrey Epstein after the disgraced financier hit on the teenage daughter of a Mar-a-Lago member, threatening the Trump brand of glitz and glamour, according to a new book published about the president’s Palm Beach club.
[snip]
Another club member explained that Trump “kicked Epstein out after Epstein harassed the daughter of a member. The way this person described it, such an act could irreparably harm the Trump brand, leaving Donald no choice but to remove Epstein,” said Sarah Blaskey, a Miami Herald investigative reporter who co-wrote the book with Miami Herald journalists Nicholas Nehamas and Jay Weaver and Caitlin Ostroff of the Wall Street Journal. “The Trump Organization did not respond to our requests for comment on this or other matters.”
A footnote in the book says the authors were shown the club’s registry from more than a decade earlier and that Epstein in fact had been a member until October 2007.
To be sure, it would pathological to describe the recruitment of sex trafficking victims as simply hiring someone’s help away from them. But it is the case that Giuffre, at least, went from employ at Mar-a-Lago (where her father was a more trusted employee) to years of financial payment from Epstein.
Calling that “employment” is precisely the kind of fiction Trump engages in all the time — to treat the financially-lubricated sex trafficking of women as mere employ.
What I’m interested in with the possibility that Trump cut off Epstein for recruiting at Mar-a-Lago is the timing Trump just laid out.
Epstein stole an employee (hypothetically, Giuffre, in 2000). Trump told Epstein not to do it again. And then — possibly the event that led to the 2007 removal — “he did it again.”
Right in-between those incidents, in 2002, Trump told New York Magazine that Epstein liked his girls (Trump called them “women”) young.
Epstein likes to tell people that he’s a loner, a man who’s never touched alcohol or drugs, and one whose nightlife is far from energetic. And yet if you talk to Donald Trump, a different Epstein emerges. “I’ve known Jeff for fifteen years. Terrific guy,” Trump booms from a speakerphone. “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. No doubt about it — Jeffrey enjoys his social life.”
And then, according to WSJ, in 2003, Trump or his staff sent Epstein a birthday letter referencing secrets and enigmas, with Trump’s signature appearing like pubic hair.
“Voice Over: There must be more to life than having everything,” the note began.
Donald: Yes, there is, but I won’t tell you what it is.
Jeffrey: Nor will I, since I also know what it is.
Donald: We have certain things in common, Jeffrey.
Jeffrey: Yes, we do, come to think of it.
Donald: Enigmas never age, have you noticed that?
Jeffrey: As a matter of fact, it was clear to me the last time I saw you.
Donald: A pal is a wonderful thing. Happy Birthday — and may every day be another wonderful secret.
If Donald Trump learned what happened to Giuffre and warned Epstein never to recruit sex slaves at Mar-a-Lago again, it would mean he was aware of what happened to Giuffre, aware years before law enforcement first started investigating Epstein. It would mean he learned Epstein was trafficking girls, which that New York Magazine quote sure seems to reflect, and rather than do something to make Epstein stop, Trump just told him not to do it at Mar-a-Lago.
It would also mean that whatever records the FBI has on their investigation into Prince Andrew — an investigation that led the Prince to stop traveling internationally — would reflect personally on Donald Trump. Not because of what Trump did, but because of what he didn’t do.
The title isn’t mentioned.Would the book by Sarah Blaskey, Nicholas Nehamas, Jay Weaver and Caitlin Ostroff be: “The Grifter’s Club: Trump, Mar-A-Lago, and the Selling of the Presidency”?
Yes
I wonder how said harassed daughter of the member feels about being lumped in with the help? And the daddy, he no-doubt paid a lot of money to have his family’s status acknowledged as something more elite.
Well, we don’t know for sure that’s what it is. Maybe Epstein poached another employee as well.
This casual discussion of trafficking women is right out of pimp culture. If you can get a copy of the Hughes Brothers documentary “American Pimp”, note the similarities in how the talk about women. Can’t remember the name of the pimp who said it, but the quote was:
“He got a reputation — guys knew not to let him walk around the block because he’d *steal* your girls. I had one stable. He came by. Took one. Then another. It wasn’t ‘choice,’ it was business. You lose a woman, she’s gone. That’s how he operated. I had to tell him: ‘Don’t ever take my women again.’ Next time I saw him, my people were gone. He stole from me.”
Contemporaneous reporting says she was a masseuse
https://pagesix.com/2007/10/15/sex-case-victims-lining-up/
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TY.
I don’t know this situation at all, but I know that in various member’s clubs (like high end country clubs) the kids of members often get hired to work there – servers in the dining room/bar, caddies, valets, work in the pro shop, etc. It is certainly possible for this daughter to have been both a member’s daughter and on the staff.
While that is certainly true of country clubs with golf courses, I would doubt that would be true of a new money, wanna be club like Mar a Lago. They take members who have lots of money but do not have the history required by the other old clubs in Palm Beach. Their members would never allow their children to ‘work’, it wouldn’t be ‘classy’.
But Mar a Lago members would never be allowed in Sailfish, The Everglades, Breakers Golf Club, or the now closed Bradley’s Beach Club. These are old money, multigenerational memberships, and a very different environment than Mar a Lago.
Trump could never get in to any of the old clubs, so he had to create his own. Just like he could never get into any of the old, storied men’s clubs in New York.
The world is the unquiet city of those who live [only] for themselves and are therefore divided against one another in a struggle that cannot end, for it will go on eternally in hell. It is the city of those who are fighting for possession of limited things and for the monopoly of goods and pleasures that cannot be shared by all.
– Thomas Merton
You nailed it, EW. Those looking for snail trails indicting Trump as a pedophile in the so-called “Epstein files” will almost certainly be disappointed. While Trump is now, as Michael Wolff reports, “post-sex” and less careful about anything, in his younger and sexier days he displayed a predilection for legal-age models alongside that creepy, voyeuristic interest in young girls that notoriously extended to Ivanka. But his sexual assaults seem to have targeted women his own age or a little younger, those he needed to dominate by force and then humiliate should they say word one about what he had done. His pathologies are complex but do not appear to involve acting on pedophilic impulses.
The big HOWEVER here is what you closed with: how much Trump knew and failed to stop. If Virginia Giuffre was merely a poached employee to him, and other victims’ stories of Trump’s presence during Epstein’s crimes get surfaced, the picture of Trump as willing passive accomplice deepens. Legally actionable? Probably not. Morally repugnant? Trump’s own shifting stories of why his close friendship with Epstein suddenly ended suggest that even Trump knows (whether he truly feels it or not) how bad this is.
Katie Johnson would would tell you that Trump is a pedophile:
https://www.politico.com/story/2016/11/donald-trump-rape-lawsuit-dropped-230770
IANAL : As I understand it, in 2016, Katie Johnson alleged in court documents that Donald Trump had a distinctive physical feature, which she described as resembling a mushroom. Two years later, in 2018, Stormy Daniels wrote a memoir in which she also described Trump as having a similar physical characteristic—referring to it as a mushroom as well. To my knowledge, the two women did not know each other. Coincidence?
“But his sexual assaults seem to have targeted women his own age or a little younger” — not entirely. One lawsuit filed and later withdrawn in 2016, alleged a rape of a 13-year-old in 1994. And there have been multiple allegations of his presence and participation at Epstein’s “sex parties” which are supposed to have involved victims in their early teens.
And as he said on Howard Stern’s show, at the pageants he would go backstage to “inspect” and he was able to as the pageant’s owner.
https://thehill.com/blogs/ballot-box/presidential-races/300093-trump-confirms-he-walked-backstage-when-beauty-queens/
Katie Johnson’s story is compelling and believable. It is not, as it currently stands, evidence in the legal sense. I hope you understand that I am not in any way defending Trump’s behavior–not with women OR with underage girls. It is simply my observation that–conveniently enough for his later political ambitions–Donald seems to have felt successful enough dominating and bullying girls in ways that went up to the line of sexual assault but did not cross it.
Crossing it–as far as we know, and I am open to new evidence–happened repeatedly with women. It was women he needed to degrade, humiliate, embarrass, and overpower. He could overpower teenage girls simply by staring at them. Not so easy with E. Jean Carroll.
Unfortunately for Epstein’s victims and for justice, Trump will paint this dichotomy as a sign of his own great moral superiority. My main point was to underscore what EW wrote: that by partaking of the Epstein cornucopia, doubtlessly with knowledge of its depravity, Trump sinned profoundly by omission. He saw his pal poach his “employees”; he knew what for; and he did nothing.
Have you all seen this interview?
Eye witness account of Trump party featuring abuse of under age pageant girls
https://youtu.be/pmq_m7rqYY8?feature=shared
Luther Cambell spills the tea.
Mods, this time stamped handle is a result of me not remembering my handle on a previous post.
I’d love to drop it and post as
tomfNW5
Trump Model Management and Trump Management Group LLC combined had requested US visas for almost 250 international fashion models, from the age of 14 and up. Remember Trump ran the Miss Teen Pageant.
https://www.theguardian.com/us-news/2020/mar/14/teen-models-powerful-men-when-donald-trump-hosted-look-of-the-year
=======
Wanna bet Trump would gloat to Epstein about which model Trump invited for “dinner ” the night before?
“…may every day be another wonderful secret…”
What kind of daily new secrets could Trump and Epstein POSSIBLY have?
#PedoBros
Anything is possible, but hope the truth is revealed about everyone remotely involved with this sordid and sad affair. The victims deserve nothing less.
Also, does it bother anyone else that all this attention and focus was not done years ago? Could it have changed the 2024 election outcome?
Much of that I suspect is due to the consequences of Acosta’s plea deal that Maxwell is trying to use as a get-out-of-jail-free card. It would certainly make prosecutors think twice before charging anything no matter how warranted.
Good point. Acosta threw a big wrench in the gears of justice with his plea deal. Still from a timing perspective, it would have been better for our side if all this Epstein attention blossomed a year ago.
It’s been blossoming for a long time–certainly since Epstein’s arrest in New York and death in jail, and during the Maxwell trial. This is not exactly a new story.
Hilariously, British PM Starmer has little direct leverage over President Trump but the figurehead King Charles might? Shipping Prince Andrew back to US to stand trial might bring up Trump’s name in the evidence, but Trump can’t pardon an international elite like Prince Andrew without literally pardoning a member of the international elite pedophile cartel.
You can’t make enough popcorn with all the corn in the Midwest for this incident.
Same problem regardless of who Trump pardons in that circle.
Charles does have leverage over him, in a PR sense. Trump covets royal attention, as the ravenous black hole of his ego feels momentarily sated in that kind of setting. Charles set up the anti-trafficking Freedom Fund 10 years ago, and Andrew was certainly a prime reason for that. I could see Charles cancelling the State visit scheduled mid-September if the Epstein/Trump vortex spirals out further toward Trump in August.
https://www.freedomfund.org/news/prince-charles-launches-anti-trafficking-fund/
“I could see Charles cancelling the State visit scheduled mid-September.”
There’s a strong likelihood that King Charles won’t see Trump on his state visit, independent of the Epstein scandal. It’s like, who hasn’t the POS pissed off among world leaders?
https://www.yahoo.com/news/articles/king-charles-donald-trump-feud-153412216.html?
So, referring to the sale of the mansion in the purported feud as the “Gosman” mansion is actually accurate. It was sold by Wexner to Gosman in 1988. There’s a lot of focus on trump/epstein battling over the purchase of the “Wexner” property, but Wexner’s ownership is once removed at this point.
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What did they know, and when did they know it?
https://www.wired.com/story/depth-of-field-jared-ivanka-buckingham/
The Spooky Symmetry of Jared Kushner and Ivanka Trump – 6/6/19
Interestingly, the 2020 article states that Epstein “had been a member until October 2007.”
Epstein first signed the plea deal September 2007. Though it was secret at that time, as it became publicly known in 2008.
The investigation originally began by local PD in March 2005.
For what it’s worth, Wolff suggests that it was Trump who went to the police about Epstein after the real estate fall-out in 2004.
https://lavocedinewyork.com/en/news/2025/07/22/michael-wolff-claims-epstein-was-given-up-to-palm-beach-police-by-trump-in-2004/
That would be curious if true. As far as I know, the original victim that kicked off the police investigation had nothing to do with Trump or Mar-a-Lago.
As far as I know, the first reporting about Trump and Epstein falling out of favor over the harassment of a daughter of a club member, is from the October 2016 book Filthy Rich by James Patterson and John Connolly.
https://web.archive.org/web/20250524181507/https://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-3825882/The-cozy-relationship-billionaire-Jeffrey-Epstein-Bill-Clinton-flew-pedophile-s-private-jet-praised-insights-generosity-detailed-new-book-James-Patterson.html
Here’s how they report that alleged event, without providing a year:
TY
And I suspect I should have been less opaque.
Assume that Wolff is reporting accurately. Regardless of whether Epstein’s suspicions about Trump going to law enforcement are correct, it shows Epstein’s awareness that Trump knows enough about what is going with respect to the victims/girls that Trump could have ratted him out.
In other words, Epstein believed (if not knew) Trump knew what was going on.
The patrons who used Epstein’s sexual services all knew enough to rat him out. The problem is how would anyone do that without ratting out themselves.
You’d have to offer up a lot of dirt on other powerful people to be able to walk on your own crimes. You’d also have to be either desperate as hell or have the power to withstand the inevitable blowback.
If she was old enough to be going to someone’s house for a party, she wasn’t a “young daughter” – she was at least 15. And she *and her parents* should have known better.
I need to go back and read all the reports.
But I am obsessed with the two grand juries.
One, 05-02, obviously dates to the beginning of 2005. The other, 07-103, from around the time the plea deal was being negotiated.
It may well be 05-02 precedes the police report we know about.
Wow, wouldn’t that be something.
The James Patterson book is questionable at times, but generally has a timeline that’s easy to refer back to.
In the James Patterson book, the feds aren’t brought in to the picture until July 2006. And that’s because the local PD contacted FBI and prosecution after DA Krischer was letting Epstein off too easy.
But a 2005 federal grand jury? That changes the story.
It sounds like the local PD did a great job, and without their dedication, then who knows how much more the crimes would have been covered up.
Journalist Julie Brown interviewed the detectives who worked the case for the Miami PD at length and they describe the origin of their investigation quite differently. (A mother of one the victims contacted the police.)
Wolff is saying that is what Epstein suspected. The article also notes Cohen never heard of Epstein and Cohen began working for Trump in 2005.
“… Jeffrey Epstein has young girls at his house’…”
(Said in a 7th grade tattletell voice)
Chitchat with a Rat
The Farmers and Maxwell
The Farmers and Maxwell
High, low, the parry, oh
The Farmers and Maxwell
The Farmers share their strife
The Farmers share their strife
High, low, the parry, oh
The Farmers share their strife
And the strife of a child
And the strife of a child
High, low, the parry, oh
The strife of a child
Did the child keep a log
Did the child keep a log
High, low, the parry, oh
Did the child keep a log
A log with chitchat
A log with chitchat
High, low, the parry, oh
A log with chitchat
Chitchat with a rat
Chitchat with a rat
High, low, the parry, oh
Chitchat with a rat
The rat wants release
The rat wants release
High, low, the parry, oh
The rat wants release
Release scammed by clones
Release scammed by clones
High, low, the parry, oh
Release scammed by clones
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=L5GUQnOTQZ0
The Farmer In The Dell Instrumental
Alternate last verse:
Release brands some thrones
Release brands some thrones
High, low, the parry, oh
Release brands some thrones
I admire your notion of a “tidy profit.” Trump’s sale of the property in FL he paid more for than Epstein bid gave him a nominal $45 million profit, more than doubling his purchase price in two years, in a down market.
Ahhh, the advantages of laundering Russian money.
And per Michael Wolff, Epstein himself was pretty confident that the initial $41 million Trump purchase price was fronted by Rybolovlev, such that the later sale was 100% profit for Trump. A tidy piece of business if you can get it (and keep your sex trafficking best friend from telling the feds).
Assumes that Trump kept the profits from that real estate windfall. Were he money laundering, he would have kept a piece of the action, not the full amount.
Rep Jackie Speier:
Shortly afterwards, Rybolovlev went on to receive a favorable outcome by the Russian government deciding fault in a collapsed mine.
https://www.sfchronicle.com/opinion/article/Did-Putin-buy-Donald-Trump-13463782.php
According to Michael Cohen, Trump said Putin bought the property and Rybolovlev was the middleman.
https://trumpfile.org/donald-trump-sells-mansion-to-russian-oligarch-he-thinks-putin/
Poaching an employee from Mar-a-Lago for a normal job might be an irritation, but it wouldn’t explain breaking a relationship with so wealthy a member as Epstein.
Recruiting another member’s guest for underaged sexual exploitation would be expensive and hard to contain. Using Mar-a-Lago as a playground to recruit for child sex trafficking? That would get Trump to break with even the wealthiest member.
Correction: Another member’s “daughter.”
It looks like the problem was the “daughter of a member” described being asked to take off her clothes at Epstein’s. She was a girl that could actually cause trouble for Trump, not one of those poor girls who needed the money. In the mind of these people, poor girls should be happy for the opportunity to make money no matter how. They were paid so they can’t complain. The daughter of a member wouldn’t need the money.
Your comment made me think that Epstein seducing vulnerable girls with no connections at Mara Lago is an irritation but Epstein seducing vulnerable girls with connections is dangerous.
It seems Epstein wasn’t actually a Mar a Lago member; Maxwell was, and she guested him in. If that was true, then “barring” him wouldn’t be that costly after all. And it’s just the kind of gesture (well past its time) that the real members would reward.
What are the odds, though, that Maxwell was a cutout for Eptstein, and that any money she spent at MAL came from or was reimbursed by Epstein? He’s the source of the money and power, not Maxwell.
That assumes that Ghislane didn’t have access to all the funds her powerful, wealthy father had stolen from his employee’s pension fund and hidden in offshore accounts. Some people familiar with Epstein suspect Ghislane was the original source of Epstein’s wealth. Epstein was the child of a middle class family who had dropped out of college then fired by the Dalton School apparently for inappropriate behavior with students . There is no good explanation for how a guy like that became so wealthy.
We probably need the matter of membership clarified.
Author Barry Levine, author of The Spider: Inside the Criminal Web of Jeffrey Epstein & Ghislaine Maxwell interviewed on CNN.
https://mstdn.social/@[email protected]/114939296320675915
Giuffre said otherwise.
Clip of an interview with Giuffre at:
https://mstdn.social/@[email protected]/114936760129789096
About Ghislaine Maxwell’s FY to Congress, over terms for submitting to an interview, why does Maxwell need immunity? The statute of limitation on most federal crimes is five years. It’s been six since her co-conspirator, Epstein, died. What crimes are still open, Ghislaine, a continuing conspiracy or obstruction? Something worse?
Sexual abuse victims who are 55 years old or younger can still file a civil lawsuit for damages in NY & the statute of limitations law in NY is 20 years for 2nd degree rape. Epstein & Ghislaine worked out of NYC too. Are there NY victims that still have time?
Something worse? The longer this goes on, I suspect that something worse will be found because he is still frightened.
A congressional or DoJ grant of limited or use immunity would give Maxwell no relief from violations of state criminal law. The feds can only relieve someone of liability for violations of federal law. Her lawyers are very good and know that.
That’s not part of why she’s demanding immunity to talk to Congress and the DoJ. Apart from unknown crimes she may be afraid of, for which she might still be prosecuted, her demand may be a delaying tactic, to put more pressure on Trump to pardon her or commute her sentence. It may also be performative theater for other powerful, wealthy Epstein patrons.
That update is just amazing. Why is he confirming that Giuffre is one of the Epstein “stole” from him?
For one thing, her bio is well-known. She also committed suicide, so she can’t complain when he misstates things about her.
I’m not sure he’s in total control.
Yesterday’s admission was … unusual.
yup. i think if reporters ask him questions like “in that video of you and Epstein watching the private girly show, it’s reported you were whispering to him that he could have his pick” and Trump would probably say something like “no no, I was telling him I had dibs on the hot one on the right!”. every question should be some version of “when you ordered the code red…” and his current brain will prolly just go with the premise.
There’s a certain analogous rhythm between:
“They’re taking people out of the spa” and
“They’re eating the dogs, they’re eating the cats”
…at least to my ears. I’m looking forward to the next Mononeon rendering of a Trump utterance (here’s his last one: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7tvfF6zfCHY)
As to Marcy saying – “I’m not sure he’s in total control”, I would say: when was that ever the case??
Maybe “in less control than his usual level of lack of control”. The man is a poster boy for no boundaries on impulses altogether. Maybe his ferality is starting to fail.
He’s also well-known for expecting complete loyalty from everyone he sees as an employee – whether they are or not.
“Everyone knows. . ..” “Everyone says. . ..”
I hate that he is permitted to get away with this fucking rhetorical device.
Can’t anyone in the fucking media challenge him when he uses it? “Mr. President, name one person who is saying this?”
Yesterday in Scotland, Trump’s response to reporters regarding visiting Epstein’s island, “I never had the privilege of going to his island, and I did turn it down, but a lot of people in Palm Beach were invited to his island. In one of my very good moments, I turned it down.”
Interesting choice, “privilege.”
“A lot of people in Palm Beach”? Like two or three?
The thing that caught my attention other than the obvious “privilege” was that he turned it down. He was obviously invited? Why would Epstein invite Trump if they didn’t have “certain things” in common. And on a good day he turned him down? All sounds pretty suspicious to me.
Do we know if T. was interviewed during Epstein’s criminal investigation in Florida?
(originally from Jan 2016)
(Edwards is the lawyer representing many of Epstein’s victims)
Source:
https://web.archive.org/web/20190729082012if_/https://news.vice.com/en_us/article/j59vm8/the-salacious-ammo-even-donald-trump-wont-use-in-a-fight-against-hillary-clinton-bill-clinton
I suspect that in 2009, Trump was more competent in his abilities to answer questions in a deflecting way and steer the conversation so that his own involvement with Epstein was carefully minimized.
Am I correct in understanding that if the voluntary statement contained falsehoods, it would not be considered perjury, whereas falsehoods in a subpoenaed deposition would be considered perjury?
I hereby unilaterally and by decree, rename “Gulf of America” to “Gulf of Epstein”.
AP and Google Maps, are u listening?
In that vein, someone should ask him whether those poached employees were reported to the FBI by himself when Epstein’s pedo-liability first surfaced, and if so, can we please see those reports with the victim’s names and identifying data redacted? You know, just so that we can know that he really did make that severe break from Epstein at that point, and also as evidence that he considered the possible victimization of his own employees as a wrong that had to be put right asap.
And if not, why not? Did he report them later, and if so, why the wait? I mean, the horror of finding out that one of his best friends and resort patrons was a trafficker of human sex slaves, that must have had him frantically alerting the FBI with those possible leads/victim-triage, all so time-critical in a complicated investigation, as Trump is so familiar with!
Hold on…”That Jeffrey, what a guy/ and many of them are on the younger side/ wink-wink nod-nod.” (forgive me for partly paraphrasing him, I try not to revisit the shit he’s said too often”
Of course he didn’t report them, so all the more reason to ask that question. “At what point did you notify the authorities that your former employees were being/had been snatched by Jeffrey Epstein…with documentation please.”
Of course, that nonfeasance on Trump’s part is THE conclusion of EW’s post, as I read it. Donald knew and did nothing. His pal Jeffrey was poaching his own employees. Trump knew what for, but he didn’t care. All he cared about was the perception that HIS property was being taken from him. In the case of the mansion sale, he would win: the property would literally become his, not Epstein’s. House? Teenage girl? All property. The only important thing was who owned it. (A club-member father, for example.)
The ‘infamous quote’ (“some are on the younger side”) actually shows an early version of Trump playing coy. Most of those invoking it leave out the key phrase. Between calling Epstein a “terrific guy” and the little girl line, Donald inserts what would become a signature distancing device: “…it is even said that…”
Even in 2002, he was clearly counting on both reporter and readers receiving the impression of him as a kind of Palm Beach gadfly, no personally closer to this Epstein character than hundreds of other rumormongers.
He is still trying to play that hand, like double solitaire, with Ghislaine Maxwell. I’m sure he loves her accent in the evenings.
Strip poker, more like — and he could fold at any time, depending on the arrangement of the remainder of the deck. And the dealer, who actually controls that arrangement, in large part is his extremely non-disinterested base.
Of course I know that his latest Epstein story version’s admission of, at a minimum and with some complicity, keeping schtum when he should have come forward (for the victims) was the crux of Marcy’s post. I was just suggesting how it might be framed as a question to him such that the “complicity” part of it is highlighted — and to add context like employee-care.
Another question suggested by the story might be: “If you didn’t timely report those employee-abscondings when Epstein’s crimes were first made public, did your prioritizing the need to protect the reputation of your own image, brand and holdings have anything to do with your silence at the time?”
Here’s another one: “Did you ever enter into an NDA with Epstein and/or Maxwell, at his/her/their behest or yours, to shield such information from the authorities and the public?” He’ll obviously say no, but that’s a question that wouldn’t hurt to be out there as well.
It’s hard to be skeptical about trump’s full knowledge of Epstein’s pimping. trump freely admits interests in younger girls. For one, trump freely admits he, too, likes younger women [girls]. How else could trump find his pleasure, if he drew the line at his daughters, her playmates? Could the anger at “poaching” a teen towel girl be something more than “employee/employer” regard?
Correction for comment above: trump said Epstein “loves beautiful women…many on the younger side”.
I’m suggesting Mar-a-Lago was also a private “island”.
Taking into account Trump’s regard for nobility – it’s called “Droit de seigneur”. Only guys like that don’t wait for the wedding nights of the “peasants”.
Please mention the age of the girls that were trafficked and raped, Giuffre was just 16 when she was recruited by convicted human trafficker Ghislaine Maxwell.
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We have to consider the possibility that it’s the exact opposite of his newly-introduced, poorly-thought-out cover story: The girls weren’t stolen by Epstein from Trump, they were given to Epstein by Trump.
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Re: 2020 book reporting that Epstein was kicked out of Mar-a-Lago in 2007: this file released by the FBI includes a Palm Beach Post story (25 July, 2006) describes Epstein’s felony indictment; p. 12:
https://vault.fbi.gov/jeffrey-epstein/Jeffrey%20Epstein%20Part%2001/view
It’s hard to believe T. wouldn’t have been aware of this. Did T. allow Epstein to keep his club membership for another year?
Mike Johnson sent the House into an early recess so that Trump & the White House (Read: Entire Executive Branch) could get their act together on the Epstein Story.
Instead of coming up with a solution, Trump and others (Blanche, Bondi, Gabbard etc) are flailing and floundering. They still have the entire month of August to get through and I wonder how they are going to turn things around.
I don’t know if this was actually said by Mark Felt (Deep Throat) when talking about Watergate, but it does fit the current cast of characters including Trump.
All The President’s Men
Maybe they can still work their way out of this mess, but they are going to have to do much much better than they are currently doing.
I agree with Marcy that he is not in total control. He has generally protected himself by using the lessons that Roy Cohn taught him. Now, I think the more direct questions asked of him about Epstein and the more time it stays in the press, the more he might have his “Code Red” confession.
The more that this is dissected, the more it reminds me of one of the handful of films that I wish that I had never seen in my life, “8 mm” with Nicolas Cage. In it, everyone is duplicitous and evil and has no regard for the victim. In the end, the powerful only want to hide their crimes… because they can.
As for Roy Cohn, I can think of no better send-off than Jeffrey Wright’s “Belize” describing a heaven without Cohn in “Angels in America”. Perhaps the orange fecal stain will find his “Belize”.
I completely forgot about Roy Cohn. There is no doubt in my mind this is total Roy Cohn. Thank You!
However, I’ve read somewhere (maybe even in a comment to some other post here on EW) that Roy Cohn said: Never sue for defamation.
Love any reference to “Angels in America” by Tony Kushner, or, alternatively, Tony Kushner’s “Angels in America”.
Does The Felon Guy know that people are not owned by their employers (not since 1860-something) and can change jobs, and do it all the time? AFAIK the only crimes involved would be taking company information/trade secrets to the new employer.
The master/slave thing occurred to me, too.
I always thank of that when Melania’s nude shot on the airplane pops up somewhere. Handcuffed to the MFers briefcase.
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It has been a while. Thanks.
There is no universe in which Trump cares at all about a sixteen-year-old junior employee being “poached” by Epstein (actually, by Trump’s good friend Maxwell) just a few months after she started work unless Trump was aware of what Epstein was up to or Trump had designs on her himself. Anything else is just bonkers.
I can’t believe I just read what I read. We now know that Trump is unaware of his pathology to own young women. As if he was in a competition with Epstein.
After Trump pardons Maxwell, he’ll wait a respectable amount of time before putting her in charge of Title IX enforcement.
P J Evans at 8:30 –
[taking company information/trade secrets]
does another wonderful secret count?
This thing is really getting wild – trying to not get too excited here, but it’s starting to look like a “Choose Your Own Adveture” with lots of extra pages to fill in! I may need to staple together the extra pages of plot developments, just to keep track.
Wow!
Maybe the suit filed against the USA (FBI) by clients of Merson Law is one of the reasons the Trump administration has taken a position so diametrically opposed to what it used to claim.
Brought in the U.S. District Court for the District of Columbia, the eight plaintiffs were victimized between 2002 and 2017, some when they were children. They say the FBI’s negligence allowed Epstein to continue his abuse for many years after the FBI had been repeatedly informed of his behavior.
One thing that no one has brought back to the table is Epstein’s sweet heart deal. To get a non-prosecution agreement, he had to have offered up quite a lot.
https://www.justice.gov/opr/page/file/1336471/dl
Acosta was rewarded with Secretary of Labor, then later Bondi was rewarded with the DOJ slot.
Did F47 use DOGE to get rid of anyone that could have been involved in or had knowledge of any part of the investigation?
Or Epstein had a lot of dirt on very powerful people and one or more of them protected him.
Trump is inEpsteinly handling this
More being unearthed!
Trump returning from Scotland was asked about his friendship ending with Epstein and stealing of some employees:
“People were taken out of the spa, hired by Epstein. I told him we don’t want you taking our people, whether it’s spa or not spa. He did it again, so I said you’re out of here.”
Reporter: Was one of the stolen people Virginia Giuffre?
Trump: “I think so. He stole her.”
2004 is the year Epstein’s mother died. Long-time PB county resident.
She was 85..
In 2006 his arrest came. I’d venture a guess that the investigation preceding his arrest conveniently failed to commence or was on hold until she passed, and only then finally allowed to proceed. As would, no doubt, be Epstein family and co-conspirators’ preference.
Quite plausible. If so, it is more likely that Maxwell and Trump had wind of it before she passed, and Trump’s “younger side” comment in 2003 takes on a more menacing tone.
And Trump wanted that business moved off premises, as you say.
I mean: a menacing tone that could even be an insider dogwhistle part of the staged kayfabe cover for simply moving the obvious, at least, of Maxwell-Epstein-Trump enterprises, off MAL premises.
Cover fabricated at the time, and later elaborated on, complete with ‘alternative endings.’
(like those that had become a fad in literary/pop fiction and ‘Hollywood’ movies by around that time)