The latest update in the Jeffrey Epstein update is that per the recent Epstein Files release it turns out that in 2006 Donald Trump called the Palm Beach, FL police on Jeffrey Epstein to report his behavior. From the Miami Herald.
But in July 2006, just as Jeffrey Epstein’s criminal sex charge became public, Trump called then-Palm Beach police chief Michael Reiter to tell him that Epstein’s activities with teenaged girls were well known in both New York and Palm Beach.
“Thank goodness you’re stopping him, everyone has known he’s been doing this,” Trump told Reiter, according to a 2019 FBI interview with Reiter contained in the Justice Department’s Epstein case files. The interview, conducted in October 2019 and not previously reported, has shed new light on Trump’s involvement in the early stages of the 2006 Jeffrey Epstein investigation in Palm Beach, Florida. It also raises questions about how much Trump knew about Epstein and Ghislaine Maxwell’s crimes. Reiter told FBI agents that Trump revealed that Epstein’s associate, Maxwell, was Epstein’s “operative,” and that Trump said “she is evil and to focus on her,” according to the report. Trump told Reiter that “he was around Epstein once when teenagers were present and Trump ‘got the hell out of there,’” the report said. Trump also told Reiter that he threw Epstein out of his Mar-a-Lago club. That stands in sharp contrast to what Trump told reporters in July 2019 when he was asked if he had any knowledge that Epstein had molested girls. “No, I had no idea. I had no idea,” Trump said at the time. Reiter, who retired as chief in 2009, confirmed to the Miami Herald that he was interviewed by FBI agents in 2019. He said the conversation with Trump happened in July 2006.
The new information about Trump’s 2006 comments comes as Maxwell was summoned to appear by video Monday before the House Oversight Committee. Maxwell, 64, is serving a 20-year sentence for sex trafficking related to her and Epstein’s sex abuse of minors. She invoked her Fifth Amendment right not to testify before the committee, although her lawyer noted that she is “prepared to speak fully and honestly if granted clemency by President Trump.” Trump has not said whether he would or would not pardon her. When asked about her arrest in July 2020, Trump said, “I just wish her well, frankly.” Maxwell’s attempts to appeal her conviction have been unsuccessful, but she has filed a legal petition arguing that her trial was unfair. The circumstances behind Reiter’s 2019 FBI interview have also not been reported before. The FBI agents came to Palm Beach at the former police chief’s request to pick up two boxes of Epstein case files that were found in the home of Joe Recarey, the lead detective who handled the case.
Again via Miami Herald.
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