Deceased wealth manager and accused child sex trafficker Jeffrey Epstein used a meeting with President Donald Trump to groom one of his 14-year-old victims, The Daily Beast reported on Thursday.
The victim, known only as “Jane,” testified extensively to how she was targeted and manipulated while testifying at the 2021 trial of Ghislaine Maxwell, the British socialite accused of helping Epstein groom his victims and sometimes sexually assaulting them herself.
She first met Maxwell and Epstein at the Interlochen summer arts camp in 1994. “She was walking with a cute little Yorkie,” she said. “We asked if we could pet the dog. We started chit-chatting, petted the dog. And the rest of my classmates had to go to class. And probably about a minute later, a man came and joined her.”
That man was Epstein.
Epstein would go on to dazzle Jane — who had lost her father to cancer, was struggling with her family’s financial ruin, and was in a vulnerable state — with promises to introduce her to celebrities, according to the testimony. He introduced her to Trump, with whom he was friends at the time, she said.
“Under cross-examination, Jane testified that Epstein had subsequently introduced her to Trump in person at Mar-a-Lago in December of 1994,” said the report. “A 2020 civil suit that Jane would later file against the Epstein estate and its executors would later allege, ‘Introducing 14-year-old [Jane] to Donald J. Trump, Epstein elbowed Trump playfully asking him, referring to [Jane], ‘This is a good one, right?’ Trump smiled and nodded in agreement. They both chuckled and [Jane} felt uncomfortable, but, at the time, was too young to understand why.’”
Trump and Epstein would ultimately fall out, and in response to the Beast story, White House Press Secretary Karoline Leavitt stated, “President Trump threw Jeffrey Epstein out of his club because he was a creep. The Daily Beast is a trash publication that spreads lies and gossip for clicks. It’s truly disgusting.”
Trump, who is struggling to contain the fallout and anger from his base over mismanagement and lack of transparency for the Epstein case, has claimed that Epstein’s “stealing” of another of his victims, Virginia Giuffre, from his employ at Mar-a-Lago was the catalyst for breaking things off with him.
But as journalist Tara Palmeri has noted, that timeline doesn’t add up, as Giuffre was groomed and abused by Epstein between 2000 and 2002, and Trump remained friends with Epstein, and allegedly contributed to his birthday book, after that time.