When did Trump and Epstein friendship end? President's answers raise questions

Miami Herald

3 days ago

President Donald Trump's varying explanations about his fallout with Jeffrey Epstein have raised more questions than answers as he struggles to move on from his days of partying in Palm Beach with the late financier.
A variety of reasons have been given as to why the two men stopped being friends: Epstein 'stole' his female employees, a real estate deal went bad, and Epstein was inappropriate with a daughter of a member of Mar-a-Lago.
The conflicting accounts have led to a closer examination of his and Epstein's relationship, leading to questions about the timeline of their friendship, what the president knew about Epstein's dealings with young girls and if there is more to the story.
Their friendship is thought to have started in South Florida in 1990, when Epstein bought a property two miles north of Mar-a-Lago, Trump's private Palm Beach Club.
Read the Miami Herald's Perversion of Justice
The date of their breakup remains a question mark.
For years, Trump put the date as 2004, saying he and Epstein fell out over a South Florida property that both men coveted. Trump outbid Epstein for the Palm Beach mansion known as the House of Friendship, paying $41.35 million.
The competitive business process brought an end to their dealings, according to Trump.
But last week he shocked the family of one of Epstein's victims when he gave a new reason he ended the relationship - because Epstein 'stole' female employees working at Mar-a-Lago's spa, including the late Virginia Giuffre.
'People were taken out of the spa, hired by him,' he told reporters.
Giuffre, who died by suicide this past April at age 41, told the story differently.
According to court papers, she said she was approached by Ghislaine Maxwell - not Epstein - when she was working in the women's locker room of Trump's resort.
And the year that happened: 2000.
However, some reports put the friendship ending as late as 2007 when Trump barred Epstein from Mar-a-Lago after the financier behaved inappropriately toward a club member's teenage daughter.
A Mar-a-Lago member told the Miami Herald that, in October 2007, Trump had 'kicked Epstein out after Epstein harassed the daughter of a member.'
McClatchy reached out to the White House for comment and did not immediately receive a response.
It was Trump's specific comments about Giuffre, the most well-known of the Epstein accusers, that brought about the new scrutiny, including when he said he warned Epstein not to poach the young women from his club.
'People would come and complain, 'this guy is taking people from the spa.' I didn't know that,' Trump told reporters late last week.
'And then when I heard about it, I told him, I said, 'Listen, we don't want you taking our people, whether it was spa or not spa.' I don't want him taking people. And he was fine. And then not too long after that, he did it again and I said, 'Out of here,'' he added.
Giuffre's family pushed back at Trump's statement that Epstein 'stole' Virginia and questioned what else he knows.
'She wasn't stolen, she was preyed upon at his property, at President Trump's property,' Sky Roberts, Giuffre's brother, told CNN on Thursday evening.
Read More: Ghislaine Maxwell moved from Florida to minimum security prison in Texas
He added that the president's comments raise questions about 'how much he knew during that time.'
The president denied, however, that he knew Epstein was abusing young women.
'No, I don't know really why, but I said, if he's taken anybody from Mar-a-Lago, he's hiring or whatever he's doing, I didn't like it. And we threw him out,' he told reporters on Thursday.
Giuffre said she met Maxwell in 2000, when she was 16 and working at Trump's Palm Beach club. Maxwell saw her reading a book on massage therapy and offered her a masseuse job with Epstein.
Two years later, in 2002, Giuffre was able to escape Epstein's sex trafficking ring when he sent her to Thailand. She met a man there she married 10 days later and moved to his home in Australia to start a family.
The same year Giuffre got away, Trump raved about Epstein to New York magazine, which wrote a profile of the financier.
Trump, in what are now infamous quotes, called Epstein a 'terrific guy' who likes women 'on the younger side.'
'I've known Jeff for fifteen years. Terrific guy,' he said at the time. 'He's a lot of fun to be with. It is even said that he likes beautiful women as much as I do, and many of them are on the younger side. No doubt about it -- Jeffrey enjoys his social life.'
Additionally, in 2003, Trump took part in a gift album for Epstein's 50th birthday, according to the Wall Street Journal. Trump denies participating.
Trump gave another number in 2019, when Epstein was arrested on federal charges tied to sex trafficking.
The president, who was in his first term at the time, said he hadn't spoken with Epstein in 15 years.
'I knew him like everybody in Palm Beach knew him. I mean, people in Palm Beach knew him. He was a fixture in Palm Beach,' Trump said in the Oval Office.
'I had a falling out with him a long time ago. I don't think I've spoken to him for 15 years. I wasn't a fan. I was not, yeah, a long time ago, I'd say maybe 15 years. I was not a fan of his, that I can tell you. I was not a fan of his.'