President Donald Trump said one of Jeffrey Epstein‘s most well-known accusers was part of the dispute that ended their friendship.
Speaking to reporters, Trump added more details to his previous account of how he fell out with the late sex trafficker. The president shared earlier this week that their acquaintance came to an end after Epstein poached some of Trump’s employees at Mar-a-Lago. While aboard Air Force One on Tuesday, he admitted that some of the employees were young women who worked in the resort’s spa, and he believed Virginia Giuffre was among them.
“Everyone knows the people that were taken,” Trump said. “People were taken out of the spa, hired by him. In other words: gone.”
One reporter pushed Trump, asking if Giuffre was one of the employees.
“I think so. I think that was one of the people,” Trump said. “He stole her. And by the way, she had no complaints about us, as you know. None whatsoever.”
Giuffre died by suicide in April.
The White House previously claimed that Trump cut ties with Epstein for “being a creep.” Aboard Air Force One, Trump was asked to clarify which story was true.
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“Well, maybe they’re the same thing, sort of a little bit of the same thing,” Trump said. “He took people that worked for me, and I told him, ‘Don’t do it anymore,’ and he did it. So, I said, ‘Stay the hell out of here.’”
Elsewhere in the chat, Trump said Rupert Murdoch and the Wall Street Journal were eager to settle his $10 billion defamation lawsuit. The president sued the outlet after it shared a report of a letter between Trump and Epstein on the occasion of Epstein’s 50th birthday.
“I’ve been treated very badly by the Wall Street Journal,” Trump said. “They are talking to us about doing something, but we’ll see what happens… They want to settle it.”
Listen to the audio below via YouTube. The relevant section begins around the 16-minute mark:
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