United States Of America – Trump’s previous relationship with Jeffrey Epstein is being questioned after the US president called a Wall Street Journal article claiming he wrote a pornographic letter to the notorious sexual offender “fake news.”
The relationship between the two is examined by AFP as the Trump administration is under pressure to make all federal records pertaining to Epstein’s death and alleged crimes public.
Private planes and parties – Epstein is a wealthy money manager whom Trump, a self-described playboy and real estate tycoon at the time, seems to have known since the 1990s.
NBC News footage shows the couple laughing and chatting when they partied with NFL cheerleaders at Trump’s Mar-a-Lago estate in Florida in 1992.
According to The New York Times, Epstein was the sole visitor to a “calendar girl” competition that Trump organized that year, which included over two dozen young ladies.
According to flight logs provided in court and referenced by US media, Trump boarded Epstein’s private plane at least seven times in the 1990s, demonstrating their tight relationship.
In 2024, he refuted this and claimed to have been “never on Epstein’s plane.”
The president has denied the New York Times’ 1993 report that Trump touched swimsuit model Stacey Williams after Epstein had introduced them at Trump Tower.
Aside from his connections to Epstein, almost 20 women have accused Trump of sexual misconduct.
He was found guilty in a civil trial in 2023 of sexually abusing and defaming American journalist E. Jean Carroll.
“Amazing man”
One of Epstein’s primary accusers, Virginia Giuffre, who passed away last year, said that while working at Trump’s Mar-a-Lago club in 2000 at the age of 17, she was enlisted in his purported sex-trafficking network.
Giuffre said Ghislaine Maxwell, who was imprisoned in 2022 for aiding Epstein in sexually abusing girls, approached her there.
During this period, Trump appeared to get along well with Epstein, calling him a “terrific guy” in a 2002 story in New York Magazine.
“Being with him is a lot of fun. He reportedly like attractive ladies just as much as I do, and many of them are younger,” Trump remarked.
Trump wrote a letter for Epstein’s 50th birthday in 2003 that included a painting of a nude woman with his signature “Donald” imitating pubic hair, according to a Wall Street Journal article.
“Happy Birthday — and may every day be another wonderful secret” was his purported message, which Trump rejected as a “fake thing.”
“I wasn’t a fan.”
According to reports, the two fell out in 2004 while bidding for a Florida beachfront home that Trump ultimately purchased.
From then on, the two men were rarely spotted together in public. In 2019, Trump would subsequently claim that they had a “falling out” and that they hadn’t communicated for 15 years.
Epstein was imprisoned for 13 months in 2008 for hiring an underage prostitute after authorities conducted an investigation shortly after the property auction.
In 2019, he was arrested once more on charges of sexually abusing and trafficking girls as young as 14.
During his first tenure as president, Trump made an effort to put his old acquaintance behind him.
He told reporters, “I wasn’t a fan,” when the charges were made public.
Epstein was discovered hanged in his jail cell while awaiting trial in 2019. According to authorities, he committed suicide.
Since then, Trump has seized onto and stoked conspiracy theories that claim former president Bill Clinton and other world elites were complicit in Epstein’s murder or other crimes.
Despite Trump’s efforts to deny the story as a “hoax” concocted by political rivals, the same theories now pose a threat to the stability of his administration.
