White House refutes claims Trump met Jeffrey Epstein in his office three decades ago
US: The White House has disputed that three decades ago, President Donald Trump met with an accuser of Jeffrey Epstein at the offices of the convicted sex offender.
White House communications director Steven Cheung told Newsweek on Monday, “This is recycled, old fake news of the highest order that was already peddled more than 6 years ago, concocted by Democrats and the liberal media just like they did with the Russiagate scandal, which was just proven today.”
Cheung said, “The president was never in his office,” alluding to Epstein. “The fact is that the president kicked him out of his club for being a creep.”
As his administration is under pressure from some of the president’s own supporters to make the evidence regarding the investigation into Epstein public, Trump’s connections to the disgraced financier and convicted sex offender have come under renewed scrutiny. Epstein committed suicide in 2019 while incarcerated pending trial on sex trafficking charges.
When the Justice Department announced on July 6 that it would not be releasing any additional information about the sex trafficking investigation against Epstein, it sparked a controversy. In a two-page document, the agency said that there was no client list of elites involved in Epstein’s trafficking of minors.
During his campaign tour last year, Trump had pledged to make Epstein-related materials public. Many Trump supporters, however, are upset with the administration’s handling of the issue because they thought the papers would expose a cover-up to shield Epstein’s influential and rich connections. After the Wall Street Journal revealed last week that Trump wrote Epstein a sexually provocative card for his 50th birthday, the outcry became more intense. The publication has been sued by Trump, who has described the piece as “false, malicious, and defamatory.”
Some Democratic senators, however, are demanding that all of Epstein’s data be made public, arguing that this hasn’t been done to shield prominent or wealthy people.
According to Trump, he was not informed by Attorney General Pam Bondi whether his name was included in the Epstein papers. He asked the Justice Department to make grand jury testimony against Epstein public, condemning as “troublemakers” those who were demanding the agency provide more material.
The New York Times claims that Maria Farmer’s story of meeting Trump, which she previously told the publication in 2019, provides insight into how Trump may have been included in the unpublished documents pertaining to the Epstein probe.
According to the publication, she worked for Epstein in 1995 and 1996, first to buy art and then to supervise the arrivals and departures of celebrities and females at the door of his Upper East Side residence in Manhattan.
In the summer of 1996, Farmer told the Times she recounted being sexually raped by Epstein and Ghislaine Maxwell, who was found guilty of aiding Epstein in luring females to be sexually abused.
She claimed at the time that she had asked investigators to investigate Epstein’s immediate circle, including Trump. When she was interrogated by the FBI in 2006 about Epstein, she made the same statement.
Despite claiming to have no proof of criminal misconduct by Epstein’s colleagues, she brought up Trump twice due to their seeming tight relationship and her meeting with him.
Late one night in 1995, Farmer recalled, Epstein had called her out of the blue to his office in Manhattan. She wore running shorts when she got there.
She said that she became terrified when Trump showed up, stood over her, and gazed at her naked legs. “No, no,” she remembered saying to Trump when Epstein entered. She’s not supporting you.
She said that when the guys left the room, she heard Trump remark that he believed her to be sixteen. She said she didn’t witness Trump acting inappropriately with girls or young women and that she didn’t have any further encounters with him.
On Saturday, Trump posted on Truth Social, “I have requested that the Justice Department make all of the grand jury evidence about Jeffrey Epstein public, pending only court approval. Nevertheless, nothing would satisfy the extreme left crazies and troublemakers who are making the request, even if the court granted its complete and resolute support. More, more, more will always be the norm. “MAGA!”
On CNN’s State of the Union on Sunday, Democratic Senator Amy Klobuchar stated, “People are curious about what’s in there for a reason. When the president says that there are things within that people should see, they believe him. The Wall Street Journal. These are neither radical progressives nor defenders of liberalism who have publicly said that the public has a right to know what is included in these texts.
On ABC’s The Week on Saturday, Republican Representative Tim Burchett of Tennessee, a co-sponsor of the bipartisan Epstein Files Transparency Act, said that the release of grand jury documents is “a start.”
“I want the Epstein files released,” he stated. However, let’s be careful not to reveal the identities of any of these people who were mistreated by this jerk, Epstein, when they were youngsters and are now adults. Additionally, let’s be careful not to broadcast anything with names that are innocent.”
Transcripts of the grand jury hearings that led to Epstein and Maxwell’s charges were sought to be unsealed by Deputy Attorney General Todd Blanche.
Legal experts, however, including former prosecutors from both the liberal and conservative parties, have warned that the public is unlikely to discover a “smoking gun” or overarching story that implicates a larger group of influential people.
There will probably be ongoing requests for the Trump administration to make the government’s Epstein case files public.