Jeffrey Epstein dumped Trump when he realized he was a 'crook': Epstein brother
Accused sex trafficker Jeffrey Epstein, who was photographed in the past partying with Donald Trump, stopped "hanging out" with Trump when he realized he "was a crook," his brother told Business Insider.
According to Mark Epstein, Trump and Jeffrey Epstein were friends for years. But Jeffrey Epstein said in an unaired interview with former White House adviser Steve Bannon seen by his brother that he cut ties with Trump because of his concerns, Business Insider reported Saturday.
Bannon sent Jeffrey Epstein a Dropbox link to a clip of the interview, which Epstein forwarded to his brother in 2019, according to Mark. The link is no longer active, Epstein's brother told Business Insider.
Jeffrey Epstein was arrested in 2019 on federal sex-trafficking charges and died of an apparent suicide in a Manhattan jail while awaiting trial. He was suspected of raping scores of young women, many of them minors, and providing them to other men. His long-time companion Ghislaine Maxwell is currently serving a 20-year prison sentence for helping Epstein locate and sexually abuse underage girls for more than a decade.
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Trump wished Maxwell well after her arrest. But Trump also banned Epstein from Mar-a-Lago Club shortly before 2008 after Epstein hit on the teenage daughter of a resort member, according to the book "The Grifter's Club: Trump, Mar-a-Lago and the Selling of the Presidency." Esptein pleaded guilty in 2008 to Florida sex trafficking charges.
In a photo widely circulated in the media Donald Trump is seen with his future wife Melania Knauss and Jeffrey Epstein at a party venue. The men reportedly often met up at social gatherings beginning in the late 1980s into the 2000s. Epstein for a time was a frequent guest at Trump's Mar-a-Lago resort, which was close to Epstein's Palm Beach home. The men were captured on video together at one party, joking together in footage obtained by NBC News.
One of Epstein's victims testified at Maxwell's trial that she once met Trump at Mar-a-Lago when she was with Epstein. She was 14 at the time.
Neither Trump nor Bannon could immediately be reached for comment.