Epstein and Trump — Love Interrupted (Part Three)

The long and illustrious friendship between two narcissistic and (alleged) pedophiles

Part Three of Three

The honeymoon is over...

After dating off and on for more than five years, Trump proposed to Melania in April 2004 and they married in January 2005 at the Episcopal Church of Bethesda-by-the-Sea in Palm Beach, Florida, with a lavish reception held at Mar-a-Lago. Trump was 58 and Melania was 34. While Epstein was a guest at Trump’s 1993 wedding to Marla Maples, there is no evidence that he attended Trump’s wedding to Melania. Interestingly enough, among the 350 guests in attendance were a certain Bill and Hilary Clinton.

“The only time you want your chick to have acne is if it’s because she’s a teenager.” - Donald Trump to Howard Stern, December 7, 2005

One year before marrying Melania, Trump and Epstein’s friendship allegedly ended. There are two stories about how and why this occurred:

Story 1 -

Trump has given multiple varying reasons for why his friendship with Epstein ended, but the most consistent reason involves him alleging that he received reports that Epstein was poaching spa employees from Mar-a-Lago to work for him.

“He stole people that worked for me. I said, ‘Don’t ever do that again.’ He did it again…and I threw him out of the place (Mar-a-Lago) persona non-grata.” - Donald Trump speaking to reporters aboard Air Force One, July 2025

It was at this same time that a reporter asked if one of the employees Epstein had “poached” was Virginia Giuffre – a prominent Epstein accuser – Trump responded, “I think that was one of the people. Yeah, he stole her. And by the way, she had no complaints about us, as you know. None whatsoever.”

These details follow what Trump said about the reasons in July 2019, where he stated he hadn’t spoken to Epstein in around 15 years, declining to provide a specific reason: “The reason doesn’t make any difference, frankly. But I haven’t spoken to him in probably 15 years or more.”

Trump has claimed the relationship ended before Epstein was indicted for soliciting prostitution in 2006, which would place Trump’s decision to ban Epstein as occurring around 2003 or 2004.

Story 2 -

Trump went out of his way to undercut and outbid Epstein for the Maison de l’Amitie oceanfront mansion located in Palm Beach, Florida, during a bankruptcy auction featuring the property.

According to Epstein, the 62,000-square-foot, French Regency-style estate was put up for auction by a bankruptcy court after its owner healthcare magnate Abraham Gosman, declared personal bankruptcy. Epstein was extremely interested in the property and had asked Trump to check out the house with him and provide some advice on moving a swimming pool. Epstein had already placed a bid for the property for $36 million. After seeing the property, Trump went behind Epstein and placed the winning bid of $41.35 million. The bankruptcy trustee is quoted as saying the situation was one involving “…two very large Palm Beach egos going at it.” Four years later, Trump sold Maison de l’Amitie to Russian oligarch Dmitry Rybolovlev for $95 million, making a profit of just over $50 million. Michael Wolff has claimed that Epstein was furious at being outbid…and suspected that the money Trump used to outbid him came directly from the Russian and maybe was tied to money laundering.

There is a rumor, promoted by Epstein himself, that Trump is the anonymous tipster that contacted Florida law enforcement in November 2004 about underage girls coming and going from Epstein’s Palm Beach home. In March 2005, a woman also contacted Florida law enforcement to claim that her 14-year-old stepdaughter had been taken to Epstein’s home by an older girl and paid $300 to strip and massage Epstein. This resulted in a 13-month investigation of Epstein’s activities.

In 2008, Epstein was arrested in Palm Beach and charged with solicitation of prostitution and solicitation of prostitution with a minor. Federal officials identified 36 girls, some as young as 14 years old, that Epstein had allegedly sexually abused. He pled guilty, but was convicted of only two crimes as part of a very controversial plead deal arranged with U.S. Department of Justice’s Alexander Acosta (later picked to be Trump’s Secretary of Labor…which he then resigned from over serious questions about his handling of the Epstein case and plea deal…). Epstein served only 13 months…with extensive work release.

On July 6, 2019, Epstein was once again arrested, this time on federal charges of sex trafficking of minors and conspiracy to commit sex trafficking of minors in Florida and New York. This time, Epstein was facing a possibility of spending the next 40+ years in prison. Two months later, on August 10, 2019, Jeffrey Epstein was found dead in his jail cell, a death the New York City medical examiner has ruled to be suicide by hanging.

The honeymoon period between Jeffrey Epstein and Donald Trump was definitely over.

“I was Donald Trump’s closet friend for ten years.”

A recent (December 2025) report from The Wall Street Journal sheds new light on Epstein’s and Trump’s relationship and how Epstein used Mar-a-Lago as a hunting ground for victims.

The report provides details from former Mar-a-Lago and Epstein employees that the spa located at Mar-a-Lago would often send masseuses, manicurists, and spa workers directly to Epstein, with some of the employees noting that Trump had given direction to treat Epstein as if he were a dues-paying member of the resort, even though he wasn’t. The report also states that Mar-a-Lago employees had formed something of a network to warn each other and new employees about Epstein as he was known for being sexually suggestive as well as having a habit of exposing himself during massage sessions.

This appears to have been standard operating procedure at Mar-a-Lago, with Epstein enjoying the benefits of Trump’s exclusive club while also scouting out victims for his abuse…and at least until an 18-year-old female Mar-a-Lago spa employee complained to her manager in 2003 about Epstein pressuring her to have sex. A fax was sent to Trump about the incident, with the manager urging Trump to ban Epstein from Mar-a-Lago.

Upon receiving the fax (which Trump described as a “good letter,” according to former employees), Trump gave orders to kick Epstein out. Due to the report, both Epstein and Maxwell were banned from the Mar-a-Lago spa. It must be noted that, at the time, this “ban” only applied to the spa.

According to investigative journalists contributing to the 2020 book The Grifter’s Club, Epstein’s membership at Mar-a-Lago was finally fully revoked in 2017 after another club member complained that Epstein had harassed or “hit on” their teenage daughter. When asked in 2007 by the New York Post about the ban, Epstein denied ever being barred, claiming he had recently been invited back to an event at the resort.

Some – but not all - of this aligns with Story 1, which is the story most often referenced whenever Trump has been asked to comment on Epstein. While the general timeline appears to be the same (more or less), the part involving Epstein “poaching” spa employees does not match the details of the 2003 incident involving the 18-year-old beautician’s complaint. The Wall Street Journal’s report also raises other questions, such as why it took another four years to fully ban Epstein and Maxwell from Mar-a-Lago entirely…and what did Trump know or not know about Epstein’s habits involving Mar-a-Lago employees before the 2003 incident.

“I was Donald Trump’s closest friend for ten years.” - Jeffrey Epstein to Michael Wolff, 2016

“We were girls who no one cared about…and Epstein pretended to care.”

During his 2024 presidential campaign, Trump made the release of the Epstein Files - compiled by the Department of Justice (DoJ) since the mid-2000s as part of ongoing criminal investigations – a key topic catering to his voting base, many of whom believed in a conspiracy tied to the files that held evidence of a “vast, secret cabal of liberal elites involved in a high-level child sex-trafficking ring and a ‘deep state’ actively involved in covering up the truth to protect those powerful figures.”

“We were girls who no one cared about…and Epstein pretended to care.” - Virgina Giuffre, from her posthumous memoir, Nobody’s Girl: A Memoir of Surviving Abuse and Fighting for Justice (published October 2025)

As more information and theories involving Epstein, his crimes, and ties to Trump swirled, public and political pressure grew to a fever pitch. Lawyers and victims’ advocates pushed for any and all files possessed by the government (approximately 5.2 million pages) to be released to the public.

In November 2025, Epstein Files Transparency Act (H.R. 4405) was passed on a bi-partisan level and then signed by Trump into law. The DoJ were given a deadline of December 19, 2025, to release all files…which the DoJ missed by only releasing “several hundred thousand” heavily redacted files. Of the files released so far, Trump is mentioned at least 1,500 times in various capacities.

The information presented in this article is easily researched and verified…and does not even begin to constitute even the tip of the iceberg when it comes to Jeffrey Epstein’s crimes…or his relationship with Donald Trump. In writing this piece, it became difficult to not conclude that Trump knows much, much more about Epstein’s actions. Trump’s words and actions regarding Epstein and the content of the DoJ’s files since being sworn in for his second presidential term on January 20, 2025, denote an extreme desire for the entire situation to go away…but it is abundantly clear that it will not. The DoJ has stated in court filings that there could be up to 1,000 victims of Epstein and Maxwell’s sex trafficking network. 200 individuals were directly involved in the legal process. For a president and administration that likes to tout their transparency, there still seems much that is being kept hidden that will eventually become exposed.

I doubt even starting a war will prevent that. In the end, the truth always comes out.

"Epstein and Trump — Love Interrupted" is a love story presented in three parts. Read Part One here, and Part Two here.

Author

Sean Thompson

Club Member, Democratic Club of Greater Tracy