President Donald Trump said Tuesday that Jeffrey Epstein “stole” young women from his Mar-a-Lago beach club spa decades ago.
“People were taken out of the spa, hired by him. In other words, gone,” Trump told reporters aboard Air Force One. “When I heard about it, I told him, I said, listen, we don’t want you taking our people, whether it’s spa or not spa … And he was fine. And not too long after he did it again. And I said outta here.”
“I have a great spa,” Trump added. “One of the best spas in the world at Mar-a-Lago.”
The anecdote comes a day after Trump said that he severed ties with the disgraced financier and child sex offender, who died in prison by suicide six years ago, after “he stole people who worked for me.”
When asked whether one of those young women was Virginia Giuffre, one of Epstein’s most vocal accusers, he said “I think so. I think that was one of the people,” adding that Epstein “stole her.”
“And by the way, she had no complaints about us whatsoever,” the president added.
Giuffre died by suicide in April.
The relationship between Trump and Epstein has been under intense scrutiny in recent weeks after Attorney General Pam Bondi said a Justice Department investigation into the files in the Epstein case found no evidence of a client list. Since then, the Trump administration has downplayed Epstein’s significance, and attempted to shift the focus to several other issues.
But Trump has managed to keep Epstein in the news by repeatedly answering questions about the man and releasing new details.
Administration officials have said Trump fell out of relations with Epstein because he was a “creep.”
The president was also asked aboard the plane whether the relationship soured because he was a “creep” or whether it was because he “stole workers” from him: “Well maybe they're the same thing, sort of a little bit of the same thing,” the president said. “He took people that worked for me and I told him don't do it anymore and he did it so I said stay the hell out of here.”
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