U.S. President Donald Trump suggested on Tuesday that he ended his friendship with disgraced financier and sex trafficker Jeffrey Epstein because he poached employees from the president’s Mar-a-Lago estate, including Virginia Giuffre — one of Epstein’s most high-profile accusers who died by suicide earlier this year.
Trump told reporters aboard Air Force One while returning to Washington, D.C., from Scotland on Tuesday that some of the workers taken from him were young women.
“The answer is yes, they were. People that worked in the spa,” he said.
Another journalist asked Trump if one of the people he was suggesting Epstein “stole” from his staff was Giuffre.
“I think she worked at the spa,” Trump replied. “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.”
The line of questioning followed comments he had made days prior, where he alluded to a fallout with Epstein over his questionable conduct.
From left, Donald Trump and his girlfriend (and future wife), former model Melania Knauss, financier (and future convicted sex offender) Jeffrey Epstein, and British socialite Ghislaine Maxwell pose together at the Mar-a-Lago club, Palm Beach, Fla., Feb. 12, 2000.
Davidoff Studios / Getty Images
The president said on Monday that he had kicked Epstein out of his Mar-a-Lago estate “because he did something that was inappropriate…. He stole people that worked for me.”
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White House staff have said recently hinted that Trump ousted Epstein from his circle around 2004 for inappropriate sexual behaviour.
Last week, a spokesperson for the president, Steven Cheung, said Trump “kicked him out of his club for being a creep.”
Giuffre claimed in a lawsuit that she was poached by Epstein’s aide, Ghislaine Maxwell, from the spa at Mar-a-Lago in 2000, at the age of 16.
Giuffre said in the lawsuit that she was initially abused by Maxwell and Epstein before being passed along to other powerful people, including Prince Andrew.
Virginia Giuffre, an alleged victim of Jeffrey Epstein, centre, exits federal court in New York on Tuesday, Aug. 27, 2019.
Jeenah Moon / Getty Images
The Trump administration has been working to shift the narrative away from Epstein in recent weeks after becoming embroiled in a self-inflicted battle with its own supporters, prompted by Trump’s failure to deliver on a promise to release the Epstein files.
Moreover, the president’s latest claims about Epstein bring Giuffre into the picture years before Trump claims to have cut ties with Epstein.
Giuffre claimed to have been hired away from Mar-a-Lago in 2000. In 2002, Trump told New York Magazine that he had “known Jeff for 15 years,” and that he was a “terrific guy.”
According to the Guardian, Miami Herald investigative reporter Sarah Blaskey noted in her 2020 book about Mar-a-Lago that Epstein stayed on the membership list of the estate until October 2007. He was first arrested more than a year before for soliciting prostitution from a minor.
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