On Monday, MAGA Republican President Donald Trump sat down for a presser at his Trump Turnberry Golf Club in Turnberry, Scotland.
After Trump lamented about a lack of gratitude from Gaza on Sunday, Monday's questions inevitably turned to the man dominating Trump's second term in office: indicted sex trafficker, convicted sex offender—both involving underage girls—and longtime friend of Donald, Jeffrey Epstein.
During the Monday presser, Trump rambled on about Epstein, trying to connect others to the convicted sex offender, until he finally revealed what he really thought about the trips to Epstein's private island—Little Saint James of the U.S. Virgin Islands—in the Caribbean.
Trump let slip:
"I’ve, I never had the privilege of going to his island."
You can watch the moment here:
People found Trump’s choice of words very telling.
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Trump also finally revealed why he fell out with Epstein in the 2000s.
It had nothing to do with Epstein becoming a registered sex offender in 2008 for crimes first investigated in 2005.
For years, Trump just said Epstein had been "inappropriate" during a visit to Mar-a-Lago.
White House mouthpiece Steven Cheung told The New York Times:
"The fact is that the President kicked him out of his club for being a creep."
White House Press Secretary Karoline Leavitt regurgitated the same information during one of her briefings, telling reporters:
"It’s not news that Epstein was a member of the Mar-a-Lago club, because it’s the same club Donald Trump kicked Epstein out of for being a creep."
But the truth has nothing to do with Epstein being a longtime sexual predator, preying on underage girls, or whatever "wonderful secret" or "certain things" he had in common with Trump.
On Monday, Trump said:
"For years, I wouldn’t talk to Jeffrey Epstein. I wouldn’t talk. Because he did something that was inappropriate."
"He hired help and I said, 'Don’t ever do that again.' He stole people that worked for me."
"He did it again, and I threw him out of the place. Persona non grata. I threw him out, and that was it. I’m glad I did."
A lot of attention has been paid to Epstein's island and who was on flights to and from it, but Epstein owned multiple homes.
His prior felony conviction was on state charges in Florida, where he was neighbors and partied with Trump.
In 2005, police in Palm Beach, Florida, began investigating a parent's report that Epstein sexually abused their 14-year-old daughter. Federal officials identified 36 girls, some as young as 14, whom Epstein sexually abused.
In 2008, Epstein pleaded guilty as part of a sweetheart deal set up by U.S. Attorney for Southern Florida Alex Acosta. Epstein was convicted by a Florida state court on a single count of procuring a child for prostitution and of soliciting a prostitute, and given an 18-month jail—not prison—term with extensive daily work release.
Epstein only served 13 months.
The Miami Herald reported in 2018 that many of the abuse allegations Epstein was charged with took place in Palm Beach, Florida, not his island.
Miami Herald reporter Julie K. Brown told NPR:
"Authorities suspect that he molested hundreds of girls over a five- or six-year period in Palm Beach alone and possibly operated an international sex-trafficking organization around the world."
Trump campaigned in 2024 on a promise to release the Epstein files.
What some of his MAGA minions forget is it was Trump's Department of Justice, under Trump's Attorney General Bill Barr, that had the FBI arrest Epstein in July of 2019—over two years into Trump's first presidential term.
It was also under the supervision of Trump's DOJ that Epstein died in August 2019, and it was Trump's Justice Department Inspector General that ruled Epstein's death was a suicide by hanging.
The Epstein files were compiled by Trump's DOJ and Trump's FBI, not Democratic Presidents Barack Obama nor Joe Biden.
As a result of Epstein's death, while in the custody of a Justice Department controlled by Trump, the files were never presented at trial, where their contents could become public record.
All facts that the Trump administration seems to want everyone to forget.
