President Donald Trump disclosed this week that a part of his falling out with Jeffrey Epstein 20 years in the past stemmed from how Epstein “stole” a woman from her employment at Trump’s Mar-a-Lago membership.
That girl, Virginia Giuffre, would later accuse Epstein of sex-trafficking her.
Trump was fast to attempt to insulate himself from the concept that these feedback elevate questions on his personal information of Epstein’s misconduct.
“And by the best way, she had no complaints about us, as you already know – none in any respect,” Trump informed reporters on Air Drive One on Tuesday when touring again from Scotland.
However Giuffre’s household has complaints and questions now, as does a lawyer who represented different Epstein victims.
And their determination to talk out casts a highlight on the possibly troublesome timeline for Trump raised by his personal feedback.
It’s now evident that not solely did Epstein rent a minor away from Mar-a-Lago to ostensibly function a touring masseuse – one thing that had been the topic of court docket proceedings – however that Trump was conscious Epstein had poached her and others and was involved, for one motive or one other.
The large query now’s whether or not Trump was actually simply upset as a result of Epstein “stole” a low-level worker or staff, or he suspected one thing extra nefarious about Epstein’s actions.
Requested on Thursday whether or not he knew why Epstein was taking girls from Mar-a-Lago, Trump stated no.
“No, I don’t know actually why,” he informed reporters on the White Home. “However I stated if he’s taking anyone from Mar-a-Lago, he’s hiring or no matter he’s doing – I didn’t prefer it – and we threw him out. We stated we don’t need him on the place.”
Relations of Giuffre, one in every of Epstein’s most well-known accusers who died by suicide earlier this yr, signaled for the primary time Wednesday that they need solutions to those sorts of questions.
“It makes us ask if he was conscious of Jeffrey Epstein and Ghislaine Maxwell’s felony actions,” stated the statement from Giuffre’s two brothers and her sisters-in-law, which was first reported by the Atlantic, “particularly given his assertion two years later that his good pal Jeffrey ‘likes girls on the youthful facet … little question about it.’ ”
A lawyer who has represented Epstein’s accusers, Spencer Kuvin, additionally told “CNN Information Central” on Thursday that he desires extra disclosure of the Epstein recordsdata and that Trump’s solutions appeared evasive.
“Discover that when he’s first requested about it, he says, ‘I don’t know.’ After which he realizes, his mind begins working and pondering by it, pondering they’re going to have the ability to determine this out and I don’t need to look silly, so I higher inform them,” Kuvin stated, including: “That occurs when somebody’s attempting to cover the reality.”
Kuvin added: “We now know from the phrases of the president himself that Virginia was proper all alongside and that she was trafficked out of Mar-a- Lago.”
To be clear, Trump has not been accused of any wrongdoing in reference to Epstein.
In response to the Giuffre household’s assertion, White Home press secretary Karoline Leavitt informed CNN that the president was “instantly responding to a query posed by a reporter about Ms. Guiffre — he didn’t deliver her up.”
That’s true, however it doesn’t make his reply any much less revealing. “I feel she labored on the spa,” Trump informed reporters. “I feel that was one of many individuals, yeah. He stole her.”
Trump’s reported conversations about Epstein and younger girls
And whereas the 2002 Trump quote that Giuffre’s household cited about Epstein and “girls on the youthful facet” is essentially the most oft-cited one, it’s not the one proof that Trump might need encountered pink flags about him.
A Florida-based businessman informed the New York Instances in a 2019 interview that he raised issues about Epstein’s conduct forward of a 1992 “calendar lady” occasion. “I stated, ‘Look, Donald, I do know Jeff very well, I can’t have him going after younger girls,’ ” the businessman, George Houraney, stated. (The primary Trump White Home didn’t touch upon that report.)
Longtime Trump adviser Roger Stone wrote in his 2016 e book a couple of scene during which Trump talked about how Epstein’s “swimming pool was full of gorgeous younger ladies.”
“How good, I believed,” Trump stated, according to Stone, “he let the neighborhood children use his pool.”
However except for the reported Trump conversations about Epstein and younger girls or ladies, there’s the timeline of his Giuffre disclosure.
There was some dispute throughout authorized proceedings within the Epstein and Maxwell instances about whether or not Giuffre was 16 or 17 years previous when she stated Maxwell recruited her from Mar-a-Lago for Epstein. Giuffre stated she was 16 and it was a summer season job, whereas Maxwell’s attorneys claimed Giuffre was 17 and he or she was employed within the fall, after her August birthday.
However Mar-a-Lago data cited in court documents counsel Giuffre’s employment was terminated in 2000, when she would have been a minor.
And Giuffre stated Maxwell’s method got here shortly after she started working at Mar-a-Lago in 2000 – solely about two or three weeks. This alternate comes from her 2016 deposition:
Q: How did it come to cross that you just have been now not working at Mar-a-Lago in two to 3 weeks?
GIUFFRE: I used to be approached by Ghislaine Maxwell.
Q: Okay. And the way lengthy had you been working at Mar-a-Lago while you have been approached by Ghislaine Maxwell?
GIUFFRE: Roughly two to 3 weeks.
One other key query is in regards to the job Giuffre was ostensibly poached for: Did Trump know Epstein recruited her to change into a masseuse?
In 2019 feedback to the Washington Publish, former Trump aide Sam Nunberg described asking Trump about his ties to Epstein as Trump was gearing up for his 2016 presidential marketing campaign. Nunberg stated Trump had informed him he had objected to Epstein recruiting a young woman who worked at Mar-a-Lago to present Epstein massages – an outline that sounds much like Giuffre’s scenario.
“He’s an actual creep, I banned him,” Nunberg stated Trump informed him.
Nunberg informed CNN in an e-mail Thursday that he didn’t know whether or not Trump was referring to Giuffre, particularly.
“I don’t recall any title being talked about nor would it not have been a priority vis-a-vis any dialogue with President Trump, as he was not concerned in any approach with the Giuffre lawsuit which was energetic on the time,” Nunberg stated.
To the extent Trump knew Epstein recruited Giuffre for massages, that will be problematic. Giuffre, in any case, wasn’t only a minor on the time; she additionally wasn’t even a masseuse. She served as an attendant within the Mar-a-Lago spa, in accordance with her testimony.
Her authorized crew additionally noted that she wasn’t even certified for a therapeutic massage license underneath Florida regulation, which required one to be 18 years previous or have a highschool diploma or equal.
All of which raises the prospect that Trump might need been conscious of not simply an worker being poached, however a minor worker being poached for a particular sort of job that didn’t appear applicable for her.
And past that, there are the reported Trump conversations about Epstein and younger females that bookend all of this.
Houraney’s account signifies he raised issues about Epstein “going after younger ladies” eight years earlier than the Giuffre episode. If Houraney’s account is appropriate, Trump would seemingly have had motive to be suspicious about Epstein recruiting a minor Mar-a-Lago worker in 2000, whether or not for massages or the rest.
And Trump would go on, two years after he suggests he was alienated by this episode, to reward Epstein as a “terrific man” and cite how Epstein “likes girls on the youthful facet.”
Trump, the White Home and Nunberg have additionally repeatedly referenced the concept that Trump fell out with Epstein as a result of Trump discovered he was a “creep.” That features Leavitt saying it was as a result of Epstein was “being a creep to [Trump’s] feminine staff.”
However there’s no actual readability on what “creep” refers to. And Trump on Tuesday balked at offering readability on that time.
When requested by a reporter what he meant by “creep,” Trump attacked the reporter’s media outlet whereas declining to reply the query.
“NBC? NBC, pretend information,” Trump stated. “I don’t care. NBC’s one of many worst. What else do you might have?”
Considerably equally, when Trump was requested after Epstein’s 2019 arrest in regards to the motive the 2 of them had a falling out, he averted a direct reply.
“The rationale doesn’t make any distinction, frankly,” Trump stated on the time.
None of it’s a smoking gun. However the timeline and the president’s sluggish disclosures definitely counsel the questions on what he knew and when are respectable and related.
And it doesn’t appear as if these questions are going away, now that these near Epstein’s victims are urgent them.
This story has been up to date with remarks from President Donald Trump on Thursday.
