New details from the Epstein Files revealed details of a 2019 FBI interview with former Palm Beach police chief Michael Reiter, in which he spoke about his conversation with US President Donald Trump.
In July 2006, just as Jeffrey Epstein’s criminal sex charge became public, Reiter said Trump called him to tell him that Epstein’s activities with teenage girls were well known in both New York and Palm Beach, the Miami Herald reported.
President Trump has repeatedly maintained that he had no knowledge of the late wealthy financier, Epstein’s sex crimes.
“Thank goodness you’re stopping him, everyone has known he’s been doing this,” Trump told Reiter, according to a 2019 FBI interview with Reiter contained in the Justice Department’s Epstein case files, according to the Miami Herald.
The FBI interviewed Reiter in October 2019. Reiter, who retired as chief in 2009, confirmed to the Miami Herald that FBI officials interviewed him in 2019. He said the conversation with Trump happened in July 2006.
The alleged conversation raises questions about how much Trump knew about Epstein and Ghislaine Maxwell’s crimes.
According to the report, Reiter told FBI agents that Trump revealed that Epstein’s associate, Maxwell, was Epstein’s “operative,” and that Trump said “she is evil and to focus on her,” according to the report.
He further told Reiter that “he was around Epstein once when teenagers were present and Trump ‘got the hell out of there,’” the report said. Trump also told Reiter that he threw Epstein out of his Mar-a-Lago club.
That stands in sharp contrast to what Trump told reporters in July 2019 when they asked if he had any knowledge that Epstein had molested girls. “No, I had no idea. I had no idea,” Trump said at the time.
Epstein Files and Ghislaine Maxwell
The US Justice Department recently released millions of documents related to the government's investigation into Epstein, many of which they have heavily redacted.
The Epstein Files Transparency Act (EFTA), passed by Congress in November, compelled the Justice Department to release all of the records in its possession related to Epstein.
The latest report emerged as the House Oversight Committee subpoenaed Maxwell, 64, who is serving a 20-year prison sentence for sex trafficking, to discuss her relations with Epstein.
Maxwell's attorney, David Markus, said that she would be prepared to speak publicly if granted clemency by Trump, news agency AFP reported.
"If this Committee and the American public truly want to hear the unfiltered truth about what happened, there is a straightforward path," Markus said in a statement. "Ms Maxwell is prepared to speak fully and honestly if granted clemency by President Trump."
