New FBI documents that came to light this week reveal details of a call from US President Donald Trump to Florida police regarding the case of sex offender Jeffrey Epstein.
According to a written record of an interview given by the FBI in 2019, first released by the newspaper Miami Heralda former police chief for the Palm Beach Department who investigated the late financier in the mid-2000s, told the federal agency that he received a call from Donald Trump at the time with the following message: “I’m glad you guys are stopping Epstein, everyone already knew he was doing it.” It was not clear what specifically the president was referring to on that occasion.
The call would have occurred around 2006, according to the publication, two years before the financier was convicted of enticing minors for sexual purposes.
Trump reportedly made comments about Epstein’s former partner, Ghislaine Maxwell, who he called at the time “Epstein’s agent.” In the call, the current US president says that “she is bad and agents should focus on her.”
The document also reveals that Trump was in the same environment as Epstein at least once, while teenagers were present. He said he “ran out of there.”
The president has already declared that he lived with Jeffrey Epstein in the 1990s, but cut ties with the financier in the early 2000s, which resulted in the sex offender’s expulsion from the Mar-a-Lago club. Trump says the disagreement was motivated by Epstein’s attempts to steal from his employees, but he has always denied having any knowledge of his crimes.
Maxwell defense calls for Trump pardon
The new relations come in the same week that Ghislaine Maxwell – Jeffrey Epstein’s accomplice and collaborator for decades – requested a pardon from President Trump in exchange for a “complete” testimony about her former partner’s crimes.
Maxwell on Monday appealed to the Fifth Amendment of the US Constitution – which protects an accused’s right not to testify against himself – in the investigation conducted by the House of Representatives Oversight Committee and refused to answer questions.
“If this Committee and the American public truly want to hear the unfiltered truth about what happened, there is a direct path. Ms. Maxwell is willing to speak with complete honesty if President Trump grants her a pardon,” attorney David Oscar Markus wrote on X.
Markus added that “only she can offer the full version. Some may not like what they hear, but the truth matters. For example, both President Trump and President (Bill) Clinton are innocent of any wrongdoing. Only Ms. Maxwell can explain why, and the public is entitled to that explanation.”
Epstein’s accomplice is serving a 20-year prison sentence for her participation in the sex trafficking network.
Trump has already clarified in past statements that he is not considering granting a pardon or commutation of sentence to Maxwell. However, he also did not rule out the possibility, even as his handling of Epstein-related matters fueled controversy and divided the Republican caucus in the House of Representatives.
