Newly unsealed FBI records describe a former Palm Beach police chief recounting a 2006 call in which President Donald Trump urged investigators to pursue Jeffrey Epstein and referred to Ghislaine Maxwell as “evil.”
A Federal Bureau of Investigation interview conducted on April 23, 2020, and released as part of a broader document disclosure, details statements attributed to a former Palm Beach police chief about the early 2000s investigation into Jeffrey Epstein, including a phone call the chief said he received from Trump in 2006.
According to the FBI memorandum, which states it “contains neither recommendations nor conclusions of the FBI,” the former chief said Trump “was one of the very first people to call” when news spread that Epstein was under investigation. The document quotes Trump as saying, “thank goodness you’re stopping him everyone has known he’s been doing this,” and describes Trump as stating that people in New York “knew EPSTEIN was disgusting.”
The memo further attributes to Trump the statement that MAXWELL was Epstein’s operative and that “she is evil and to focus on her.” It also recounts that Trump said he “got the hell out of there” after being around Epstein when teenagers were present.
The publicly released version of the document redacts the name of the interviewee. The Miami Herald reported that the individual was former Palm Beach police chief Michael Reiter and that the call occurred in 2006, citing confirmation from Reiter.
White House press secretary Karoline Leavitt said Trump barred Epstein from his Mar-a-Lago club “because, frankly, Jeffrey Epstein was a creep,” and described Epstein’s crimes as “heinous” and “disgusting,” Forbes reported.
The FBI memo also outlines tensions between Palm Beach police and state prosecutors during the original investigation. The former chief described assembling sexual battery cases and conducting surveillance that, according to the memo, included observing “prepubescent” girls coming and going from Epstein’s residence.
The document states the case was presented to the State Attorney’s Office, which ultimately directed that Epstein be issued a notice to appear on a misdemeanor charge of lewd and lascivious behavior.
The interview recounts that local investigators believed the case “died at the state level” and that there was discussion of a non-prosecution agreement that included a counseling fund for victims. The memo reflects the interviewee’s view that “the system failed in this case,” though it emphasizes that the document does not represent FBI conclusions.
The Justice Department released millions of Epstein-related records in late January under a federal disclosure law, more than a month after a December 19 deadline. Some of these files, as previously reported by The Dallas Express, reveal how top deputies in Epstein’s sex trafficking network, such as Ghislaine Maxwell, were brought into the country on H-1B visas.