Trump: Epstein 'Stole' Giuffre From Mar-a-Lago

President Trump said Tuesday that Jeffrey Epstein "stole" young women who worked for the spa at Mar-a-Lago, the latest evolution in his description of how their highly scrutinized relationship ended years ago. One of the women, he acknowledged, was Virginia Giuffre, who was among Epstein's most well-known sex trafficking accusers.

• Aboard Air Force One while returning from Scotland, Trump said he was upset that Epstein was "taking people who worked for me," the AP reports. The women, he said, were "taken out of the spa, hired by him—in other words, gone." "I said, listen, we don't want you taking our people," Trump said. He said that when it happened again, he banned Epstein from Mar-a-Lago.

• Trump's comments expanded on remarks he had made a day earlier, when he said he had banned Epstein from his private club in Florida two decades ago because his one-time friend "stole people that worked for me." At the time, he did not make clear who those workers were.
• Asked Tuesday if Giuffre was one of the employees poached by Epstein, he demurred but then said "he stole her." Giuffre died by suicide earlier this year. She claimed that Ghislaine Maxwell spotted her working as a spa attendant at Mar-a-Lago in 2000, when she was 16 years old, and hired her as Epstein's masseuse, which led to sexual abuse.
• The White House originally said Trump banned Epstein from Mar-a-Lago because he was acting like a "creep."
• Although Giuffre's allegations did not become part of criminal prosecutions against Epstein, she is central to conspiracy theories about the case, the AP reports. She accused Epstein of pressuring her into having sex with powerful men.
• The Guardian notes that Trump's remark about Giuffre "complicates the timeline" of his break with Epstein. White House aides have suggested Trump kicked Epstein out of Mar-a-Lago in 2004. In 2002, two years after Epstein hired Giuffre, Trump told New York magazine: "I've known Jeff for 15 years. Terrific guy. 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."