New details from the Epstein Files have revealed details of a 2019 FBI interview with former Palm Beach Police Chief Michael Reiter, where he discussed his conversation with US President Donald Trump.
It was claimed that in July 2006, just as the Jeffrey Epstein sex allegations became public, Trump called Michael Reiter to tell him that Epstein’s activities with teenage girls were well known in both New York and Palm Beach, the Miami Herald reported.
This was despite President Trump repeatedly claiming he knew nothing about Jeffrey Epstein’s sex crimes.
“Thank God you stop him, everybody knows he’s doing it,” Trump told Reiter, according to a 2019 FBI interview with Reiter that is part of the Justice Department’s Epstein files, the Miami Herald reported.
The interview was reportedly conducted in October 2019. Reiter, who retired as chief in 2009, confirmed to the Miami Herald that he was interviewed by FBI agents in 2019. He said the interview with Trump took place in July 2006.
The alleged conversation raises questions about how much Trump knew about the crimes of Epstein and Ghislaine Maxwell.
According to the report, Reiter told FBI agents that Trump disclosed that Epstein’s associate, Maxwell, was Epstein’s “operative” and that Trump said “she’s evil and to focus on her,” according to the report.
He further told Reiter that “he was at Epstein’s once when teenagers were present and Trump ‘got the hell out of there,'” according to the report. Trump also told Reiter that he fired Epstein from his Mar-a-Lago club.
This is in stark contrast to what Trump told reporters in July 2019 when asked if he knew Epstein had molested girls. “No, I had no idea. I had no idea,” Trump said at the time.
The Epstein Files and Maxwell
The US Department of Justice recently released millions of documents related to the government’s investigation of Epstein, many of which have been heavily redacted.
The Epstein Files Transparency Act (EFTA), passed by Congress in November, forced the Justice Department to release all Epstein records in its possession.
The latest news comes after Maxwell, 64, who is serving a 20-year prison sentence for sex trafficking, was subpoenaed by the House Oversight Committee to discuss her relationship with Epstein.
Maxwell’s lawyer, David Markus, said she would be ready to speak publicly if Trump pardoned her, AFP news agency reported.
“If this committee and the American public really want to hear the unfiltered truth about what happened, there is a direct path,” Markus said in a statement. “Ms. Maxwell is prepared to speak fully and frankly if President Trump pardons her.”
