Trump Claims Epstein Recruited Individuals from Mar-a-Lago Spa | Vanity Fair

One of the obvious reasons that the Jeffrey Epstein saga has so spectacularly blown up in Donald Trump’s face is that so many members of the administration, including the president himself, spent years hyping the idea that the government was involved in a vast cover-up of both the disgraced financier’s crimes and those of his powerful associates, the details of which Trump was going to blow the doors wide open. So when the Trump administration announced earlier this month that there were actually no further details to share, and that no one else was going to be charged, the very people Team Trump had spent years riling up were pretty pissed. Another reason this whole thing won’t go away? Probably the fact that the president can’t stop offering bizarre commentary on the matter, like talking about how he declined the “privilege” of going to the private island where Epstein committed many of his horrific crimes, leaving the door open to pardoning convicted Epstein associate Ghislaine Maxwell, and casually claiming that Epstein took one of his victim’s from the spa at Mar-a-Lago.

Speaking aboard Air Force One on Tuesday, the president was asked about a remark he’d made the day prior about ending his friendship with Epstein because he “stole people” that worked for him. “Were some of the workers that were taken from you, were some of them young women?” a reporter asked. To which Trump responded: “I don’t want to say but everyone knows the people that were taken. The concept of taking people that work for me is bad.…and the answer is yes, they were.”

“I have a great spa, one of the best spas in the world at Mar-a-Lago,” he continued, “and people were taken out of the spa, hired by him, in other words, gone.” Asked by another reporter if “one of those stolen persons” included Virginia Giuffre—one of Epstein’s most prominent victims—Trump answered: “I don’t know. I think she worked at the spa, I think so, that was one of the people, he stole her. And by the way she had no complaints about us, none whatsoever.”

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The president’s explosive remarks follow him talking Monday about the prospect of pardoning Maxwell, “Well, I’m allowed to give her a pardon, but nobody’s approached me with it. Nobody’s asked me about it. It’s in the news about that, that aspect of it, but right now, it would be inappropriate to talk about it.” That was the second time in matter of days that Trump emphasized that he has the power to pardon the longtime Epstein associate, who is currently serving a 20-year prison sentence.

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For her part, Maxwell has asked the Supreme Court to overturn her conviction; she also wants immunity in exchange for testifying before Congress, having been subpoenaed to appear next month.

Also on Monday, Trump denied ever visiting Epstein’s Caribbean island with a characteristically bizarre turn of phrase, saying “I never had the privilege of going to his island, and I did turn it down, but a lot of people in Palm Beach were invited to his island. In one of my very good moments, I turned it down. I didn’t want to go to his island.” He then explained why he apparently ended his friendship with Epstein. “I wouldn’t talk to Jeffrey Epstein because he did something that was inappropriate,” the president said. “He stole people that worked for me. I said, ‘Don’t ever do that again.’ He did it again, and I threw him out of the place,” he said, referring to Mar-a-Lago.

And, of course, it wouldn’t have been a Trump presser without claims of a hoax and a shot at his Democratic foes. Responding to a question about whether Attorney General Pam Bondi had told him his name was mentioned in the Epstein files, the president said he hasn’t “been overly interested in it” because “it’s a hoax that’s been built up way beyond proportion.” Then he suggested Joe Biden, Kamala Harris, James Comey, and Merrick Garland—all recurring MAGA targets—planted evidence about him in the documents. “I can say this,” he said. “Those files were run by the worst scum on Earth. They were run by Comey, they were run by Garland, they were run by Biden and all of the people that actually ran the government, including the autopen. Those files were run for four years by those people. If they had anything (on Trump), I assume they would have released it.”

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From the Archive: Dating Jeffrey Epstein