Photo: The Department of Justice
(New York, New York) – Newly released FBI records suggest Donald Trump appears in the Epstein files not as a participant—but as one of the earliest figures urging law enforcement to stop Jeffrey Epstein.
According to an FBI summary of a 2019 interview, former Palm Beach Police Chief Michael Reiter told investigators that Trump personally called him during the mid-2000s investigation into Epstein.
“Thank goodness you’re stopping him,” Trump allegedly told Reiter. “Everyone has known he’s been doing this,” the FBI document states.
The call reportedly came around July 2006, as police were investigating Epstein for recruiting underage girls for sexualized “massages.” The FBI summary says Trump told Reiter he had already thrown Epstein out of Mar-a-Lago, warned investigators to focus on Ghislaine Maxwell, and said he once removed himself from a situation involving Epstein and teenagers because it felt wrong.
Trump has long maintained that he cut ties with Epstein more than 20 years ago and barred him from his club after discovering inappropriate behavior. He has repeatedly denied any knowledge of Epstein’s crimes beyond public rumors at the time.
The FBI report notes Trump was “one of the very first people to call” law enforcement once word spread that Epstein was under investigation—casting his presence in the files as that of a whistleblower, not a suspect.
Reiter later became a central figure in the case, publicly criticizing prosecutors for weakening charges and apologizing to victims after Epstein received a controversial non-prosecution agreement in 2008.
As more Epstein records are released, the documents suggest Trump’s name appears in the files for a very different reason than many others—because he was pushing authorities to shut Epstein down.
