Trump and Epstein appeared at Mar-a-Lago, in Florida, during an NBC feature in 1992. Photo / YouTube
Donald Trump allegedly knew about Jeffrey Epstein’s abuse of young girls and called police to thank them for “stopping” him, according to new documents.
Trump reportedly phoned the Palm Beach police department in 2006 shortly after the first charges were brought against the late paedophile.
“Thank goodness you’re stopping him, everyone has known he’s been doing this,” Trump told police chief Michael Reiter, according to an interview Reiter gave to the FBI in 2019.
Trump is also said to have told police to “focus” on Ghislaine Maxwell, who he said was “evil” and Epstein’s “operative”.
The comments clash with the President’s insistence that he had “no idea” about the financier’s abuse of young girls.
Trump was close friends with Epstein until the early 2000s, when the two men reportedly had a falling out over a property they both wished to buy.
He has said he threw Epstein out of Mar-a-Lago when the financier “stole” young female employees of the luxury members’ club.
The President’s phone call to police was first reported by the Miami Herald, who contacted Reiter to confirm he was the official whose name is redacted in the FBI document released in the Epstein files.
Reiter told FBI agents that he struggled for years to convince higher authorities to take Epstein’s case seriously.
According to the four-page summary of his interview with the FBI, Palm Beach Police Department began watching Epstein’s home in 2003, after calls to a tip-line that attractive women were coming in and out of his house. Two women were stopped, but they were found to be adult Epstein employees.
By then, Epstein had donated more than US$130,000 (214,000) to the police department to help them buy a fingerprint machine and a device to review security camera footage. He had also donated to the police scholarship fund for children, said Reiter, who became Palm Beach police chief in 2001 and retired in 2009.
The investigation was renewed in March 2005 when the department received a phone call from a woman who said her 14-year-old stepdaughter had been molested by Epstein. The girl later told police that dozens of high school girls were being recruited by Epstein, with massages often leading to sexual assault and rape.
Reiter told the FBI agents he became frustrated when the former local state’s attorney, Barry Krischer, rebuffed police efforts to arrest Epstein in 2006. He then took the case to the FBI.
Private investigators hired by Epstein then began to harass Reiter, picking through his trash and following him.
In 2007, the Palm Beach police chief requested a meeting with the then US attorney for Miami, Alex Acosta, to find out why Epstein had still not been arrested.
According to Reiter’s testimony, Acosta said Epstein’s defence lawyers had frustrated the case – and there was “a lot of interest from higher up”.
Despite testimonies from 40 underage victims, Epstein and his lawyers were able to convince federal prosecutors to limit the case to just one count of soliciting a minor. He served a light 13-month sentence, which allowed him to leave prison every day to go to his office in West Palm Beach.
According to Reiter, Trump said he was around Epstein once when teenagers were present and “got the hell out of there”.
He added that people in New York knew Epstein was “disgusting”.
“We are not aware of any corroborating evidence that the President contacted law enforcement 20 years ago,” an FBI spokesperson said.
The Telegraph has approached the White House for comment.
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