President Donald Trump said Tuesday, July 29, that Jeffrey Epstein "stole" young women who worked for the spa at Mar-a-Lago, the latest evolution in his description of how their highly scrutinized relationship ended years ago. One of the women, he acknowledged, was Virginia Giuffre, who was among Epstein's most well-known sex trafficking accusers.
Trump's comments expanded on remarks he had made a day earlier, when he said he had banned Epstein from his private club in Florida two decades ago because his one-time friend "stole people that worked for me." At the time, he did not make clear who those workers were.
The Republican president has faced an outcry over his administration's refusal to release more records about Epstein after promises of transparency, a rare example of strain within Trump's tightly controlled political coalition. Trump has attempted to tamp down questions about the case, expressing annoyance that people are still talking about it six years after Epstein died by suicide while awaiting trial, even though some of his own allies have promoted conspiracy theories about it.
Ghislaine Maxwell, Epstein's imprisoned former girlfriend, was recently interviewed inside a Florida courthouse by the Justice Department's No. 2 official, though officials have not publicly disclosed what she said. Her lawyers said Tuesday that she's willing to answer more questions from Congress if she is granted immunity from future prosecution for her testimony.
Aboard Air Force One while returning from Scotland, Trump said he was upset that Epstein was "taking people who worked for me." The women, he said, were "taken out of the spa, hired by him – in other words, gone."
"I said, listen, we don't want you taking our people," Trump said. When it happened again, Trump said he banned Epstein from Mar-a-Lago. Asked if Giuffre was one of the employees poached by Epstein, he demurred but then said "he stole her."
The White House originally said Trump banned Epstein from Mar-a-Lago because he was acting like a "creep."
Giuffre died by suicide earlier this year. She claimed that Maxwell spotted her working as a spa attendant at Mar-a-Lago in 2000, when she was a teenager, and hired her as Epstein's masseuse, which led to sexual abuse. Although Giuffre's allegations did not become part of criminal prosecutions against Epstein, she is central to conspiracy theories about the case. She accused Epstein of pressuring her into having sex with powerful men.
Maxwell, who has denied Giuffre's allegations, is serving a 20-year prison sentence in a Florida federal prison for conspiring with Epstein to sexually abuse underage girls. A spokeswoman for the House Oversight Committee, which requested the interview with Maxwell, said the panel would not consider granting the immunity she requested.