New reporting shows that Trump’s split with his pedophile friend was opportunistic.
Jeffrey Epstein and Donald Trump pose together at the Mar-a-Lago estate, Palm Beach, Florida, on February 22, 1997.
(Davidoff Studios / Getty Images)
On Christmas Day, Donald Trump delivered the most bizarre yuletide message ever offered by a US president. Complaining that he’s being unfairly linked to the late pedophile Jeffrey Epstein, Trump posted a long rant on Truth Social that began, “Merry Christmas to all, including the many Sleazebags who loved Jeffrey Epstein.” Trump went on to lament how he is being blamed for his ties with Epstein, protesting that he was “actually the only one who did drop Epstein, and long before it became fashionable to do so.”
Trump’s claim to have dropped Epstein is partly true but obscures a crucial fact: that he and Epstein were close friends from the 1980s until their break at some point in 2003. Epstein had been barred from the spa at Trump’s Mar-a-Lago resort in 2003 and the two men seemed to have a more definitive break in 2004. The exact circumstances of the break remain mysterious, since Trump has offered conflicting accounts, sometimes claiming that he was mad that Epstein “stole” an employee from Mar-a-Lago and sometimes referring to competition the two men had over real estate in 2004.
The nature of Epstein’s relationship with Donald Trump has been clarified by a damning report published by The Wall Street Journal on Tuesday. The report makes clear that Mar-a-Lago was crucial to Epstein’s sexual predation, a fact that was well-known by Trump’s inner circle long before Epstein was charged with any crime. One reasonable inference from the report is that Epstein was protected by a system of plausible deniability at Mar-a-Lago that allowed him to use the resort to harvest victims. Trump initiated a break with Epstein only once a formal complaint by a Mar-a-Lago employee made it impossible to maintain plausible deniability.
According to the Journal:
Jeffrey Epstein wasn’t just a frequent visitor to Donald Trump’s Mar-a-Lago club in the late 1990s and early 2000s. The club was also sending spa employees—usually young women—to Epstein’s nearby mansion for massages, manicures and other spa services, according to former Mar-a-Lago and Epstein employees.
The house calls went on for years, even as spa employees warned each other about Epstein, who was known among staff for being sexually suggestive and exposing himself during the appointments, according to the former Mar-a-Lago employees.
The spa occasionally provided house calls for members. Epstein wasn’t a dues-paying member of the club, but Trump told staff to treat him like one, the employees said. Epstein had an account at the spa where his companion, Ghislaine Maxwell, booked appointments on his behalf.
Based on this report, the question becomes: What did Donald Trump know about Jeffrey Epstein’s predations and when did he know it? Trump was married to Marla Maples from 1993 to 1999. Maples, according to the Journal, “in the mid-1990s warned her husband and others there was something ‘off’ about Epstein.”
In 2000, Ghislaine Maxwell, Epstein’s most important accomplice, recruited Mar-a-Lago employee Virginia Giuffre to work with Epstein. Giuffre was raped by Epstein, who also sexually trafficked her to his friends.
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In 2002, Trump told New York magazine, “I’ve known Jeff for 15 years. Terrific guy. He’s a lot of fun to be with. It is even said that he likes beautiful women as much as I do, and many of them are on the younger side.” In January of the following year, Trump sent a birthday card to Epstein full of sexual innuendo.
A crisis in the Epstein-Trump relationship started soon after. As the Journal details, the Mar-a-Lago arrangement ended “after an 18-year-old beautician returned to the club from a house call to Epstein and reported to managers that he had pressured her for sex, former employees said.” The Journal reported that former employees said a manager then faxed Trump the allegations and urged him to ban Epstein, which Trump did.
While Trump and his supporters will claim that the fact Trump barred Epstein from the Mar-a-Lago spa in 2003 exonerates the president, the facts of the case make Trump’s culpability much more evident.
Trump had every reason to know before 2003 that Epstein was sexually mistreating Mar-a-Lago employees, some of whom were under the age of consent. The 2003 letter from the beautician created a problem for Trump: He no longer had plausible deniability about Epstein’s misconduct. There was now a paper trail, one that could be used against Trump. His break with Epstein was entirely opportunistic. Trump may not be criminally culpable in this situation. It would certainly be difficult to prove he’s guilty of a crime beyond a reasonable doubt. But in judging politicians, criminal guilt is not the only standard to use. On any reasonable moral ground, Trump’s behavior was atrocious. Mar-a-Lago was key to Epstein’s criminal enterprise. Trump’s critics should not hesitate to hammer this fact home.