US President Donald Trump said he had kicked Jeffrey Epstein from Mar-a-Lago, his Palm Beach club. (Image Source: AP) The US Department of Justice (DoJ) has released a new document where Donald Trump called then Florida police chief, bashing his former friend and late sex offender Jeffrey Epstein, and referred to Ghislaine Maxwell as “evil”.
In 2019, the Palm Beach Police Chief Michael Reiter told the FBI that Trump had called him to thank him for stopping Epstein and that “everyone has known he’s been doing this”.
While Reiter’s name is redacted in the document, it says that the interview subject was Palm Beach’s Police Chief at that time, who was Reiter.
According to a report by the Miami Herald, Trump had called him in 2006 after the police department publicly started investigating Epstein.
Surprisingly, the document came to light a few hours after Epstein’s associate – Ghislaine Maxwell’s lawyer, asked Trump to give her executive clemency. This can include pardoning or reducing her sentence and releasing her from prison earlier than scheduled.
The document also suggests that Trump told Reiter that he had thrown Epstein out of his Palm Beach club, Mar-a-Lago.
According to the FBI’s 302 summary of its interview with Reiters, “Trump told him people in New York knew Epstein was disgusting.” Trump also reportedly told Maxwell was Epstein’s operative and that “she is evil and to focus on her.”
In 2008, Epstein had pleaded guilty to Florida state charges to soliticing prostitution from an underage girl to avoid federal prosecution.
The document summary also says that “he was around Epstein once when teenagers were present, and Trump got the hell out of there. Trump was one of the very first people to call when people found out that they were investigating Epstein.”
However, in an April 2019 email released last year, Epstein told the author Michael Wolff that Trump “knew about the girls,” but it is still unclear what the phrase means.
In November last year, the White House had said that the “fact remains that President Trump kicked Jeffrey Epstein out of his club decades ago for being a creep to his female employees.”
When CNBC asked the US Department of Justice, it said that they “are not aware of any corroborating evidence that the President contacted law enforcement 20 years ago.”
When Jeffrey Epstein’s co-conspirator Ghislaine Maxwell appeared before the House Oversight Committee, she refused to answer questions, citing her Fifth Amendment right against self-incrimination.
David Oscar Marcus, Maxwell’s attorney, said that she was willing to “speak fully and honestly” if Trump was ready to grant her executive clemency.
“Only she can provide the complete account. Some may not like what they hear, but the truth matters. For example, both President Trump and President Clinton are innocent of any wrongdoing. Ms Maxwell alone can explain why, and the public is entitled to that explanation.”