Newly released court records tied to the Jeffrey Epstein investigation include details from a 2019 FBI interview that sheds light on a previously undisclosed conversation involving President Donald Trump. According to reporting based on the documents, the interview reflects statements attributed to former Palm Beach police chief Michael Reiter about a phone call he says occurred in 2006.
In that call, Trump allegedly commented on Epstein’s legal troubles, telling Reiter, “Thank goodness you’re stopping him, everyone has known he’s been doing this,” despite Trump’s later public assertions that he was unaware of Epstein’s alleged crimes while they were occurring. Trump also reportedly identified Ghislaine Maxwell as Epstein’s “operative,” adding that “she is evil” and urging authorities to “focus on her.”
While the publicly available version of the document redacts the interview subject’s name and omits the call date, the Miami Herald reported that Reiter confirmed he was the interviewee and that the conversation took place in 2006. The document also notes that Trump “was one of the very first people to call” police once Epstein became the subject of an investigation.
According to the record, Trump said he distanced himself from Epstein, claiming he “got the hell out of there” upon seeing Epstein around teenagers. He also allegedly told police that “people in New York knew Epstein was disgusting.”
When asked about the report, White House press secretary Karoline Leavitt said Trump barred Epstein from Mar-a-Lago “because, frankly, Jeffrey Epstein was a creep,” adding that Epstein’s crimes are “heinous” and “disgusting.”
The documents are part of a larger Justice Department release of roughly 3 million Epstein-related records made public in January under federal disclosure requirements.