... Donald Trump snitched? Kinda.
In fact, Trump was one of the first in the Palm Beach socialite circle to urge police to intensify their investigations both Jeffrey Epstein and Ghislaine Maxwell. An FBI report from 2006 reveals that Trump notified Palm Beach police chief Michael Reiter about both Epstein and Maxwell, calling her "evil" and urging police to focus on her role in Epstein's activities. Reiter told the FBI about Trump's tip in 2019 when the Department of Justice renewed interest in both Epstein and Maxwell:
BREAKING:
— An Open Secret (@AnOpenSecret) February 10, 2026
Unsealed court docs reviewed by the Miami Herald show DONALD TRUMP called Palm Beach police about Jeffrey Epstein in 2006
Trump described Ghislaine Maxwell as “Epstein’s operative “she is evil and to focus on her” pic.twitter.com/S01tfEn9XF
The Miami Herald first reported this development last night:
“Thank goodness you’re stopping him, everyone has known he’s been doing this,” Trump told Reiter, according to a 2019 FBI interview with Reiter contained in the Justice Department’s Epstein case files.
The interview, conducted in October 2019 and not previously reported, has shed new light on Trump’s 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’s crimes.
Reiter told FBI agents that Trump revealed that Epstein’s associate, Maxwell, was Epstein’s “operative,” and that Trump said “she is evil and to focus on her,” according to the report.
Trump told Reiter that “he was around Epstein once when teenagers were present and Trump ‘got the hell out of there,’” the report said. Trump also told Reiter that he threw Epstein out of his Mar-a-Lago club.
The Herald tries valiantly to spin this as Trump being dishonest about Epstein:
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.
“No, I had no idea. I had no idea,” Trump said at the time.
As Rusty Weiss explains at RedState, that's hurricane-force spin:
Trump's comment came in direct response to reporters asking if he had any knowledge that Epstein had molested girls. He was denying awareness of Epstein's crimes or the allegations of molestation/sex trafficking that surfaced prominently around Epstein's 2019 arrest.
Nowhere in this FBI interview does it indicate he had specific knowledge of the criminal molestation, sexual abuse, or trafficking details that later emerged in the full Epstein investigation or his 2008 plea deal. It's Trump saying he had heard from others about "disgusting" behavior and how he was so creeped out that he had to remove Epstein from his club.
Countless people in Palm Beach social circles noticed Epstein had a pattern of questionable behavior with young women, without having direct evidence or knowledge of the felony-level crimes. Good try, media.
That's consistent with Trump's public statements all along. He realized Epstein and Maxwell were creeps, thanks to their attempts to poach an 18-year-old employee at Mar-a-Lago, along with the socialite scuttlebutt in both Palm Beach and New York City. When Trump found out that police had begun investigating, Reiter claims Trump called him to encourage a full-effort probe into both Epstein and Maxwell.
Most importantly, Reiter didn't claim that Trump provided evidence of crimes in his tip call. He told Reiter that the two were "disgusting," Maxwell was "evil," and that police should look at Maxwell specifically. Nothing about that suggests knowledge of specific criminal acts; Trump was smart enough to recognize the risk and "got the hell out of there" before witnessing any such crimes.
So no, this does not contradict Trump's prior statements. It does, however, corroborate his long-standing claims by Trump to have cut Epstein off at least a couple of years before police first began looking into Epstein's activities. It also blows all suggestions out of the water that Trump has been suppressing these files to cover up his own alleged culpability. If Trump had been dumb enough to take part in Epstein's molestation activities, he'd hardly have called up the police chief in Palm Beach and told him to dig harder. Trump draws a lot of water in that beach community, after all.
Will this put an end to the Protection Racket Media's Epstein=Trump spin? Probably not, but having Trump's role as a tipster of sorts makes those efforts look even more transparently political ... and desperate.
Editor’s Note: The mainstream media isn't interested in the facts; they're only interested in attacking the president. Help us continue to get to the bottom of stories like the Jeffrey Epstein files by supporting our truth-seeking journalism today.
Join Hot Air VIP and use promo code FIGHT to get 60% off your membership!
Join the conversation as a VIP Member