– The Washington Times
President Trump was one of the first people to call Palm Beach police to alert them that Jeffrey Epstein was sexually abusing teenage girls, a bombshell Justice Department file has revealed.
A 2020 document released by the Justice Department as part of a mass disclosure of the “Epstein files” showed that Mr. Trump called the Palm Beach Police Department in Florida and told then-Chief Michael Reiter, “thank goodness you’re stopping him, everyone knows he’s been doing this.”
Mr. Trump told the police that he “was around Epstein once” when teenage girls were present. Mr. Trump said he “got the hell out of there,” and was “one of the very first people to call” when he found out the Palm Beach Police Department was investigating Epstein. The Department’s investigation began in 2005.
The revelation came from an FBI interview with Mr. Reiter, who retired from the police department in 2009 and is considered one of the law enforcement heroes who pushed for the investigation and prosecution of Epstein. At the time, Epstein was luring underage girls from the local high schools to give him massages at his Palm Beach mansion.
Mr. Reiter’s name is redacted in the file.
Mr. Trump had been friends with Epstein in the 1990s and early 2000s.
According to the FBI document, Mr. Trump told Mr. Reiter “he threw Epstein out of his club,” and that “people in New York knew he was disgusting.”
Mr. Trump told Mr. Reiter to investigate Epstein’s girlfriend, Ghislaine Maxwell, who was later convicted of luring underage girls into Epstein’s sex trafficking ring.
Mr. Trump told Mr. Reiter, “she is evil and to focus on her.”
Maxwell is serving a 20-year sentence on sex trafficking charges and refused to answer questions this week from a House panel investigating who participated in Epstein’s sex trafficking operation. She is seeking a pardon from Mr. Trump in exchange for her testimony.
The testimony from Mr. Reiter largely lines up with Mr. Trump’s retelling of his relationship with Epstein and the reports of close Trump associates.
Mr. Trump said he threw Epstein out of his Mar-a-Lago club after Epstein lured away one of his female employees, Virginia Giuffre, who later became one of the most vocal Epstein victims.
Epstein died by suicide in a New York City jail cell in 2019 as he awaited prosecution on federal sex trafficking charges.
• Susan Ferrechio can be reached at sferrechio@washingtontimes.com.
