United States President Donald Trump has said that he ended his relationship with disgraced financier and convicted sex abuser Jeffrey Epstein because he “stole” young female workers from Trump’s Mar-a-Lago resort.
Speaking to reporters on his way home from a trip to Scotland on Tuesday, Trump alleged that one such worker was the late Virginia Giuffre, one of Epstein‘s highest-profile accusers.
“People were taken out of the [Mar-a-Lago] spa, hired by him. In other words, gone,” Trump said. “When I heard about it, I told him, I said, ‘Listen, we don’t want you taking our people.’
“And then, not too long after that, he did it again. And I said, ‘Out of here.’”
The US president, who had a close relationship with Epstein for years, has become increasingly defensive as he faces growing scrutiny over his administration’s refusal to release government records with information about Epstein’s abuses.
Officials including Attorney General Pam Bondi have said that releasing further documents would risk disseminating victim information and child pornography collected as evidence.
But Bondi’s comments have helped fuel the controversy. In a February interview with Fox News, Bondi said that Epstein’s supposed client list was “sitting on my desk right now”.
Conspiracy theorists have long maintained that Epstein kept a list or book of contacts in order to coerce powerful figures in arts and politics. They also have cast doubt on Epstein’s jailhouse suicide in 2019, calling it, without proof, a cover-up.
Current members of Trump’s administration, including FBI director Kash Patel and his deputy, Dan Bongino, had played up those theories in past media appearances.
But the Department of Justice and FBI later released a review concluding that there was no reason to believe such a list existed and that Epstein had died by suicide, as the government originally concluded.
That assertion was met with frustration from some corners of Trump’s own far-right base, who have speculated for years about Epstein’s ties with powerful figures and the circumstances of his death.
Giuffre has been a prominent figure in online conspiracy theories. She had accused Epstein of pressuring her to have sex with the powerful men in his orbit.
Until her death by suicide earlier this year, Giuffre maintained that she had been approached as a teenager by Epstein’s former girlfriend, Ghislaine Maxwell, while she was working at Mar-a-Lago.
Giuffre had been employed at the time as a spa attendant. Her father worked in maintenance at the resort.
Maxwell, according to Giuffre, offered her money to work as a masseuse for Epstein, who then sexually abused her. She described Maxwell and Epstein as grooming her to perform sex acts for other men. Giuffre alleged that “massage” was sometimes used as a code word for sex.
Giuffre ultimately filed a civil suit against Maxwell in New York. While Maxwell has denied Giuffre’s allegations, she settled the suit for an undisclosed sum.
Maxwell is currently serving a 20-year prison sentence in a Florida federal prison for conspiring with Epstein to sexually abuse underage girls.
If you or someone you know is at risk of suicide, these organisations may be able to help.
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