Donald Trump claimed Jeffrey Epstein's victims are ‘Democrats trying to make me look bad', sources say
Behind closed doors, the president has allegedly grown frustrated as his efforts to move past the uproar have been undermined.
Mr Trump has allegedly questioned whether some survivors and their families are 'just trying to make him look bad,' two people familiar with the conversations told Rolling Stone.
The sources said the president has also criticised those who have spoken out for 'implying that he did something wrong during his time as one of Epstein's friends and party companions,' the magazine reported.
The president allegedly dismissed some of those women making media appearances as 'clearly of a Democrat political affiliation', the sources said. He also questioned whether some of them are coordinating with prominent liberal attorneys or groups, they added.
A White House official denied the report and dismissed its claims as false.
'None of this is true,' they said. 'Just another desperate attempt by the failing Rolling Stone.'
The president has found himself at the centre of a MAGA firestorm after refusing to release the so-called Epstein files, which the Republican pledged to release on the 2024 campaign trail.
After weeks of unrelenting uproar over the Justice Department's announcement in early July that there was no evidence Epstein had a 'client list,' attorney general Pam Bondi reportedly briefed Mr Trump in May that his name was mentioned in the files, according to The Wall Street Journal. The president is now suing the newspaper for $10bn over the reporting.
Mr Trump has denied any knowledge of Epstein's crimes, and has never been accused of wrongdoing in connection with the sex offender's case. The White House says the president threw Epstein out of Mar-a-Lago for being a 'creep.'
It was compounded by reports earlier this month that Epstein's accomplice, Ghislaine Maxwell, who is serving a 20-year prison sentence for child sex trafficking charges, had been transferred to a minimum security Texas prison facility after the Department of Justice spoke with her last month in Florida.
Sisters Annie and Maria Farmer, who accused Epstein of assaulting them and testified against Maxwell in her trial, told CNN the Trump administration's 'chaotic' approach to the case and sidelining of victims 'has a real cost for survivors'.
Danielle Bensky, who accused Epstein of abusing her in 2004, told NBC News that it 'feels like we're being erased.'
Lawmakers from both sides of the political aisle have also continued to push for the whole, unredacted release of the Epstein files.
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