Donald Trump personally called the police chief of Palm Beach, Fla. in 2006 to thank him for investigating Jeffrey Epstein — and told him to “focus on” the disgraced financier’s “evil” accomplice, Ghislaine Maxwell, according to a newly released FBI document.
According to the summary of an October 2019 interview of Michael Reiter, who served as the wealthy Florida enclave’s top cop from 2001 to 2009, the future president was “one of the very first people to call when people found out” authorities were investigating Epstein for sex with girls as young as 14 who he had hired to give him massages.
“Thank goodness you’re stopping him, everyone has known he’s been doing this,” Trump was quoted as telling Reiter on the call, adding that he “got the hell out of there” on one occasion when he was around Epstein while teenagers were present.
The summary, first reported by the Miami Herald, added that Trump told Reiter he “threw” Epstein out of Mar-a-Lago and that “people in New York knew Epstein was disgusting.”
Trump also referred to Maxwell as “Epstein’s operative,” telling the chief “she is evil and to focus on her.”
Reiter’s name is redacted in the interview summary, but details in the document match up with publicly known information about his role in the Epstein probe.
According to the chief, he met Epstein after the financier reported one of his employees for stealing from him.
Reiter recounted that Epstein donated $40,000 to the department for the purchase of a machine to review security footage, cut a $90,000 check (never cashed) to buy a fingerprinting machine around the time his first victim came forward, and gave “more than others” to a police scholarship fund for children.
When Reiter inquired about Epstein, he claimed to have been told that the financier “supports law enforcement and is an important guy.”
The summary of the FBI interview of Reiter was included in millions of files that have been released by the Justice Department in connection with the case of Epstein, who pleaded guilty to Florida charges of soliciting a minor for sex in 2008 under a controversial non-prosecution agreement that saw him serve 13 months in prison, much of that time on work release.
Epstein was arrested by the FBI in July 2019 and charged with sex trafficking, but was found dead in his Manhattan jail cell the following month while awaiting trial.
The document emerged hours after Maxwell invoked her Fifth Amendment right against self-incrimination during a closed-door virtual deposition before the House Oversight Committee.
The 64-year-old UK-born socialite declined to answer questions about her friendship with Epstein or her role in the trafficking of young women and girls.
An attorney for Maxwell, who is currently serving a 20-year prison sentence at a medium-security Texas facility, said following the testimony that his client would speak freely if she is granted clemency by Trump.
The White House has said that no such action is under consideration, with Trump telling reporters in July that he would “take a look at it.”
“I wouldn’t consider it or not consider it. I don’t know anything about it,” he said at the time. “I will speak to the DOJ.”
