According to newly unsealed documents from the FBI, Donald Trump warned authorities about Jeffrey Epstein’s crimes as early as 2006.
Per a newly released FBI document, Trump personally called the police chief of Palm Beach, Fla., in 2006 to thank him for investigating Jeffrey Epstein — and told him to “focus on” Epstein’s “evil” accomplice, Ghislaine Maxwell.
According to the summary of an October 2019 interview obtained by the Miami Herald, Michael Reiter who served as Palm Beach’s top police officer from 2001 to 2009, Trump was “one of the very first people to call when people found out” that authorities were investigating Epstein for sex with girls as young as 14 whom he had hired to give him massages.
“Thank goodness you’re stopping him, everyone has known he’s been doing this,” Trump was quoted as telling Reiter on the call, adding that he “got the hell out of there” on one occasion when he was around Epstein while teenagers were present.
The summary also added that Trump told Reiter he “threw” Epstein out of Mar-a-Lago and that “people in New York knew Epstein was disgusting.”
Trump also referred to Maxwell as “Epstein’s operative,” telling Reiter “she is evil and to focus on her.”
According to the Miami Herald report, Reiter’s name is redacted in the interview summary, but details in the document match up with publicly known information about his role in the Epstein probe.
According to the Reiter, he met Epstein after the financier reported one of his employees for stealing from him.
When Reiter inquired about Epstein, he claimed to have been told that the financier “supports law enforcement and is an important guy.”
The Palm Beach Police Department began receiving reports about Epstein “[i]n the early 2000’s, maybe 2003,” according to the summary.
Eventually, Reiter said, his officers put together a sprawling case against Epstein, including “sexual battery cases against the co-conspirators.”
However, Reiter recalled that state prosecutors “said the victims were not credible and would show their MYSPACE pages and such. They would refute minute details in the probable cause affidavit … This case died at the state level.”
Reiter recounted that Epstein donated $40,000 to the department for the purchase of a machine to review security footage, cut a $90,000 check (never cashed) to buy a fingerprinting machine around the time his first victim came forward, and gave “more than others” to a police scholarship fund for children.
The summary of the FBI interview of Reiter was included in millions of files that have been released by the Justice Department in connection with the case of Epstein, who pleaded guilty to Florida charges of soliciting a minor for sex in 2008 under a controversial non-prosecution agreement that saw him serve 13 months in prison, much of that time on work release.
The document emerged hours after Maxwell invoked her Fifth Amendment right against self-incrimination during a closed-door virtual deposition before the House Oversight Committee.
The 64-year-old UK-born socialite declined to answer questions about her friendship with Epstein or her role in the trafficking of young women and girls.
An attorney for Maxwell, who is serving a 20-year prison sentence at a medium-security Texas facility, said following the testimony that his client would speak freely if she is granted clemency by Trump.
The White House has said no such action is under consideration, with Trump telling reporters in July that he would “take a look at it.”
“I wouldn’t consider it or not consider it. I don’t know anything about it,” he said at the time.
“I will speak to the DOJ.”
This is an ongoing story.