WASHINGTON – President Donald Trump says his falling out years ago with convicted sex offender Jeffrey Epstein was prompted by his former friend’s recruitment of Trump’s Mar-a-Lago spa staff, and that one of the people who accused the disgraced financier of sex trafficking had been a Mar-a-Lago employee.
Trump told reporters that the staff Epstein “stole” from him worked in the spa and staffers included Virginia Giuffre, a former attendant at his Palm Beach resort who said in a unsealed deposition for a defamation lawsuit against Epstein associate Ghislaine Maxwell that she was forced as a teenager to have sex with powerful men. Among the men Giuffre said she was directed to have sex with was Prince Andrew of Britain, according to a lawsuit. Prince Andrew has denied the allegation.
Giuffre died by suicide in April of this year. She is the only person Trump has named since he attested he’d ended his friendship with Epstein. He said he did so because the deceased multimillionaire, who was awaiting trial on sex-trafficking charges at the time of his 2019 death, “stole” workers from his businesses.
Trump acknowledged on July 29 that some of the staffers at the Palm Beach spa were young women. He first declined to provide the detail, telling reporters who were on a flight with him from Scotland, “Everyone knows the people that were taken.”
But he then affirmed that young women were involved, telling a reporter: “The answer is yes, they were.” Asked what the workers did, Trump offered that they were “in the spa.”
“People that work in the spa. I have a great spa, one of the best spas in the world at Mar-a-Lago, and people were taken out of the spa – hired by him, in other words – gone,” he said.
Trump was asked if Virginia Giuffre was one of the people Epstein had hired. At first, the president said, “I don’t know.” But after a short pause, he said, “I think so, I think that was one of the people, yeah. He stole her. And by the way, she had no complaints about us.”
More: Trump met teenage Epstein victim who was contestant in his beauty pageant
He could not say how many staffers Epstein poached from him, noting that the incident took place many years ago. He said that after Epstein was given an initial warning, “he took some others, and once he did that, that was the end of him.”
“When they steal people, I don’t like it,” Trump said.
The White House previously said that Trump ended his friendship with Epstein, whom CNN reported attended the president’s second wedding to Marla Maples, because the financier was a creep. Trump told reporters on July 29 that the two explanations were essentially the same.
Trump has been under immense pressure to explain his relationship with Epstein and release documents related to the government’s investigation into Epstein’s alleged sex crimes.
His most recent comments came after Maxwell, Epstein’s codefendant, agreed to provide testimony to a congressional committee in response to subpoena if the panel granted her immunity. Maxwell was convicted in 2021 of sex trafficking. She appealed to the Supreme Court on July 28.
This article originally appeared on USA TODAY: Trump says he fell out with Epstein over Mar-a-Lago spa staff
