Trump’s Call About Epstein in 2006

The first time the Palm Beach police were asked to look into Jeffrey Epstein, it was a phone call from Donald Trump, who was the city’s police chief then. In 2019, Michael Reiter, the former chief, told the FBI that Trump had said, “Thank goodness you’re stopping him, everyone has known he’s been doing this. ” The statement comes from a document that was part of the Justice Department’s release of Epstein files.Trump also mentioned that people in New York knew Epstein was “disgusting” and urged the police to investigate Ghislaine Maxwell, calling her “evil. ” He recalled being around Epstein once when teenagers were nearby and said he “got the hell out of there. ” Reiter says the call happened in July 2006, two months after Epstein’s death in jail while awaiting trial on federal sex‑trafficking charges. The conversation shows how Trump’s explanations about his knowledge of Epstein and Maxwell have changed over time. He has denied knowing Epstein abused minors, yet he also claimed the financier “stole” young women from his Mar‑a‑Lago club. The White House said Trump had barred Epstein from the club because he was “a creep. ”