![\"Undated](\"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/03\/1774166373_48_TrumpEpstein1.JPG\" "\\"Undated")
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Undated photograph of Jeffrey Epstein, Donald Trump and model Ingrid Seynhaeve from the Epstein estate\u2019s document production to the House Oversight Committee.<\/p>\n
House Oversight Committee Democrats<\/p>\n
President Donald Trump has repeatedly maintained that he had no knowledge of Jeffrey Epstein\u2019s sex crimes.<\/p>\n
But in July 2006, just as Jeffrey Epstein\u2019s criminal sex charge became public, Trump called then-Palm Beach police chief Michael Reiter to tell him that Epstein\u2019s activities with teenaged girls were well known in both New York and Palm Beach.<\/p>\n
\u201cThank goodness you\u2019re stopping him, everyone has known he\u2019s been doing this,\u201d Trump told Reiter, according to a 2019 FBI interview<\/a> with Reiter contained in the Justice Department\u2019s Epstein case files.<\/p>\n The interview, conducted in October 2019 and not previously reported, has shed new light on Trump\u2019s involvement in the early stages of the 2006 Jeffrey Epstein investigation in Palm Beach, Florida. It also raises questions about how much Trump knew about Epstein and Ghislaine Maxwell\u2019s crimes.<\/p>\n Reiter told FBI agents that Trump revealed that Epstein\u2019s associate, Maxwell, was Epstein\u2019s \u201coperative,\u201d and that Trump said \u201cshe is evil and to focus on her,\u201d according to the report.<\/p>\n Trump told Reiter that \u201che was around Epstein once when teenagers were present and Trump \u2018got the hell out of there,\u2019\u201d the report said. Trump also told Reiter that he threw Epstein out of his Mar-a-Lago club.<\/p>\n That stands in sharp contrast to what Trump told reporters in July 2019 when he was asked if he had any knowledge that Epstein had molested girls.<\/p>\n \u201cNo, I had no idea. I had no idea,\u201d Trump said at the time.<\/p>\n Reiter, who retired as chief in 2009, confirmed to the Miami Herald that he was interviewed by FBI agents in 2019. He said the conversation with Trump happened in July 2006.<\/p>\n An FBI official denied that Trump called Reiter.<\/p>\n \u201cWe are not aware of any corroborating evidence that the President contacted law enforcement 20 years ago,\u201d the official said.<\/p>\n The new information about Trump\u2019s 2006 comments comes as Maxwell was summoned to appear by video Monday before the House Oversight Committee.<\/p>\n Maxwell, 64, is serving a 20-year sentence for sex trafficking related to her and Epstein\u2019s sex abuse of minors. She invoked her Fifth Amendment right not to testify before the committee, although her lawyer noted that she is \u201cprepared to speak fully and honestly if granted clemency by President Trump.\u201d<\/p>\n Trump has not said whether he would or would not pardon her. When asked about her arrest in July 2020, Trump said, \u201cI just wish her well, frankly.\u201d<\/p>\n Maxwell\u2019s attempts to appeal her conviction have been unsuccessful, but she has filed a legal petition arguing that her trial was unfair.<\/p>\n The circumstances behind Reiter\u2019s 2019 FBI interview have also not been reported before. The FBI agents came to Palm Beach at the former police chief\u2019s request to pick up two boxes of Epstein case files that were found in the home of Joe Recarey, the lead detective who handled the case.<\/p>\n Recarey, 50, died of natural causes in May 2018, and his widow moved out of the area. Reiter notified the FBI after the boxes were turned over to him, the report said.<\/p>\n He told the FBI that one of the boxes contained an imaged copy of a laptop computer from Epstein\u2019s kitchen counter that had phone messages on it that Reiter had not seen before, the FBI report said. The report did not say what else was in the boxes.<\/p>\n The interview is four pages, mostly focusing on Reiter\u2019s summary of the Palm Beach Police Department\u2019s investigation into Epstein, which began in 2003, when the police received a report that young women were seen going in and out of Epstein\u2019s waterfront mansion at 358 El Brillo Way on the island of Palm Beach.<\/p>\n The police set up surveillance at Epstein\u2019s house, but upon checking the identities of two of the women who were visiting, found them to be adults. The case was closed because police found no evidence of a crime at the time.<\/p>\n Then in March 2005, Palm Beach police received a call from a woman reporting that her 14-year-old stepdaughter had been molested by Epstein. Upon interviewing the girl, she told them that other girls were being sexually assaulted as part of an organized scheme in which high school girls were being recruited to give Epstein massages that led to assault and, at times, even rape, according to Reiter\u2019s account, which is also backed up by court files.<\/p>\n \u201cMore surveillance was done on Epstein\u2019s house,\u201d Reiter told the FBI agents. \u201cSome kids were observed, prepubescent with braces and backpacks coming from school\u2026one employee said there were dozens of girls in one day. The [Palm Beach Police Department] then put together a case and brought it to the state\u2019s attorney office.\u201d<\/p>\n Reiter explained that he was upset when the state attorney, Barry Krischer, rebuffed police efforts to arrest Epstein in 2006. After Krischer declined to prosecute, Reiter took the unusual step of writing a later asking Krischer to recuse himself from the case. When Krischer refused, Reiter then took the case to the FBI.<\/p>\n The case was turned over to the Miami U.S. Attorney\u2019s office in early 2007. Epstein hired a team of high-powered attorneys, and private investigators, whom Reiter said followed him and other police officers assigned to the case, and picked through their trash in order to find something they could use to discredit them.<\/p>\n Epstein lived less than a mile from Mar-a-Lago and, around 2000, Maxwell, Epstein\u2019s former girlfriend, recruited 16-year-old Virginia Giuffre, who worked at Mar-a-Lago\u2019s spa as an attendant.<\/p>\n Giuffre, who died by suicide last year, has said that Maxwell approached her while she was working at the spa and offered her a job as a masseuse for a wealthy man. It was Maxwell who introduced her to Epstein.<\/p>\n Palm Beach police, however, said no victim they had interviewed indicated they were recruited or abused by Maxwell, who by 2006 had largely been absent from Epstein\u2019s Palm Beach home.<\/p>\n Trump has said that he banned Epstein from Mar-a-Lago after learning he was trying to steal his employees. But the President has consistently denied any knowledge of Epstein crimes.<\/p>\n In 2002, in an interview with New York Magazine, Trump called Epstein a \u201cterrific guy\u201d and noted \u201cit is even said that he likes beautiful women as much as I do, and many of them are on the younger side.\u201d<\/p>\n In 2019, Epstein also wrote an email in which he said of Trump, \u201cOf course he knew about the girls, as he asked Ghislaine to stop.\u201d That email was contained in a cache of documents the House Oversight Committee obtained from Epstein\u2019s estate pursuant to a subpoena in December.<\/p>\n Reiter told the FBI agents that by 2007 he became troubled by the fact that the federal prosecutors still had not arrested Epstein, so he requested a meeting with then-Miami U.S. Attorney, Alex Acosta, to find out why. Acosta told him that the defense attorneys had frustrated prosecutors and that there was \u201ca lot of interest from higher up.\u201d<\/p>\n Reiter told the FBI he felt \u201cthere was a hurry to make this case go away.\u201d Shortly after meeting with Acosta, he then found out on television that Epstein had been given federal immunity.<\/p>\n Federal prosecutors gave Epstein federal immunity in 2007 in exchange for him pleading guilty in state court to two counts of solicitation, one involving a minor. He served 13 months in the Palm Beach County jail, most of it on work release that allowed him to leave the jail every day to go to his office in West Palm Beach.<\/p>\n In 2018, the Miami Herald published an investigation into the case, \u201cPerversion of Justice<\/a>,\u201d which detailed how Epstein and his lawyers were able to convince federal prosecutors to limit the scope of Epstein\u2019s crimes \u2013 to just one case involving one 16-year-old girl. At the time, they had nearly 40 underage victims.<\/p>\n Reiter said he was devastated upon learning about the plea deal.<\/p>\n \u201cIt was very disappointing that the system failed in this case,\u201d Reiter told the FBI.<\/p>\n Miami Herald reporter Claire Healy contributed to this report.<\/p>\n This story was originally published February 9, 2026 at 5:12 PM.<\/p>\n Julie K. Brown<\/a><\/p>\n Miami Herald<\/p>\n Julie K. Brown is a member of the Miami Herald\u2019s Investigative Team. Her 2017 probe into Palm Beach sex trafficker Jeffrey Epstein won multiple journalism awards, including a George Polk Award. She was also a member of the Herald\u2019s 2022 Pulitzer-Prize-winning team recognized for its coverage of the Surfside condo collapse. Michael Reiter is the former chief of police in the Town of Palm Beach, and was the chief during the investigation of Jeffrey Epstein. He said the young women lured to Epstein\u2019s mansion didn\u2019t necessarily know each other but they told nearly identical stories. Emily Michot emichot@miamiherald.com <\/p>\n
Joseph Recarey, the former Palm Beach police detective who led the investigation into Jeffrey Epstein, said the millionaire\u2019s solicitation of sex with underage girls resembled a pyramid scheme. Its unraveling was similar, with one victim leading to two others, each of whom led to others, and so on. Emily Michot emichot@miamiherald.com <\/p>\n
![\"Virginia](\"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/03\/giuffre.JPG\" "\\"giuffre.JPG\\"")
Virginia Giuffre holds a photo of her younger self. Emily Michot emichot@miamiherald.com <\/p>\n
\n ![\"Profile](\"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/03\/JulieBrown-Profile.jpg\")
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\n Support my work with a digital subscription<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Undated photograph of Jeffrey Epstein, Donald Trump and model Ingrid Seynhaeve from the Epstein estate\u2019s document production to…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":174729,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[9],"tags":[68491,9098,81500,123,125,124,2684],"class_list":{"0":"post-201197","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-miami","8":"tag-epstein","9":"tag-mar-a-lago","10":"tag-maxwell","11":"tag-miami","12":"tag-miami-headlines","13":"tag-miami-news","14":"tag-trump"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/201197","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=201197"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/201197\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/174729"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=201197"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=201197"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=201197"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}