Despite his efforts to move on from the Jeffrey Epstein case, President Trump spoke about how his former friend and convicted offender “stole” one of the more vocal accusers in the case from Mar-a-Lago.
Videos by Suggest
While speaking to reporters earlier this week, Trump discussed his friendship with Epstein and what led to their ultimate fallout.
“He took people that worked for me,” President Trump said about Jeffrey Epstein. “And I told him, ‘Don’t do it anymore.’ And he did it.”
Trump then said he barred Epstein from his Palm Beach, Florida, resort, Mar-a-Lago, after Epstein failed to heed his warning.
“I said, ‘Stay the hell out of here,'” the world leader recalled.
When asked if any of the “stolen” employees were young women, President Trump confirmed that many of them were employees from the resort’s spa.
“The answer is yes, they were in the spa,” he said. “I told, I said, ‘Listen, we don’t want you taking our people, whether it was spa or not spa.’ And he was fine. And then not too long after that, he did it again.”
That was when he mentioned Virginia Giuffre, a key accuser of Jeffrey Epstein and his associate Ghislaine Maxwell. Giuffre once stated that she had met Maxwell while working at Mar-a-Lago as a teenager.
“I think she worked at the spa,” Trump said about Giuffre. “I think that was one of the people. He stole her, and by the way, she had no complaints about us, as you know, none whatsoever.”
The former friendship between Trump and Epstein became the center of discussion after Trump’s administration announced it wouldn’t release files about the Epstein case. The administration also claimed the long-talked-about client list did not exist.
Epstein died in prison while awaiting trial in 2019.
Virginia Giuffre Died Earlier This Year
The Epstein files situation comes after Virginia Giuffre died by suicide in April. She was 41 years old at the time of her death.
Not only did she accuse Jeffrey Epstein of trafficking her, but Giuffre also claimed that a UK royal family member, Prince Andrew, had sexually abused her when she was a teenager.
The alleged incidents took place at Jeffrey Epstein’s New York mansion and on the late financier’s infamous private Caribbean island, Little St. James.
In 2022, Giuffre filed a civil lawsuit against Prince Andrew, claiming she was forced to have encounters with the prince in the early 2000s when she was 16 and 17 years old.
Despite his denial of Giuffre’s claims, Prince Andrew settled by paying her £12 million, part of which went to SOAR (Speak Out, Act, Reclaim), the advocacy charity for survivors of sex trafficking that she had founded.
Although he never confessed to having any relations with underage girls, Prince Andrew acknowledged he was aware that Epstein trafficked countless young girls over the years. He also stated he regretted his association with Epstein.
Prince Andrew recently lifted his self-imposed travel ban after the U.S closed the Epstein investigation.