From left, Donald Trump and his girlfriend (and future wife), former model Melania Knauss, investor (and future convicted sex offender) Jeffrey Epstein, and British socialite Ghislaine Maxwell pose together at the Mar-a-Lago Club in Palm Beach, Florida, on February 12, 2000.
Davidoff Studio Photos | Archive Photos | Getty Images
President Donald Trump bashed his former friend Jeffrey Epstein in a phone call with a Florida police chief two decades ago and called Epstein’s procurer Ghislaine Maxwell a “bad guy,” a now-retired police officer told FBI agents in 2019, according to documents released by the Justice Department.
According to an FBI document known as 302, President Trump told the FBI in October 2019 that he called then-Palm Beach Police Chief Michael Reiter and “told him to tell him I’m glad he stopped (Epstein). We all knew he was doing this.”
Mr. Reiter’s name has been redacted starting with number 302. But the documents identify the interviewee as the Palm Beach police chief at the time of the department’s investigation of Epstein, and that person was Leiter.
Reiter told the Miami Herald, which first reported the documents, that Trump called him in 2006 after the police investigation into Epstein became public.
The documents came hours after Maxwell’s lawyers asked President Trump to grant him a presidential pardon so he could “honestly” talk about what he knows. Maxwell declined to testify before a House committee early Monday.
Trump told the writer that he kicked Epstein out of the Mar-a-Lago club in Palm Beach, according to the summary.
According to FBI interview summary 302 with Reiter, “Mr. Trump told him (Reiter) that the people of New York knew that Mr. Epstein was disgusting.”
“President Trump said Maxwell was an Epstein operative and that ‘she is the bad guy and the focus should be on her,'” the FBI said in 302.
U.S. President Donald Trump sits in support of the bill he signed to end the partial government shutdown at the White House on February 3, 2026 in Washington, DC, USA.
Evelyn HochsteinReuter
Epstein later pleaded guilty to a Florida charge of soliciting prostitution from an underage girl in 2008 in exchange for avoiding federal criminal prosecution.
Leiter’s interview with the FBI in October 2019 came two months after Epstein committed suicide in a New York federal prison after being arrested on child sex trafficking charges.
In a 2006 phone conversation, “Mr. Trump told (the writer) that he had once been near Epstein when he was with teenagers, but that Mr. Trump had run away from there,” the summary said.
“Mr. Trump was one of the first people people called when he learned they were investigating Mr. Epstein,” the summary said.
In an April 2019 email released by House Democrats last year, Epstein wrote to author Michael Wolff that Trump “knew about the girls.”
It is unclear what is meant by “knew about the girls.”
Trump has not been charged with any wrongdoing related to Epstein.
“The fact remains that President Trump kicked Jeffrey Epstein out of the club decades ago after he made female employees uncomfortable,” the White House said in November.
When the White House was asked by CNBC for comment on the FBI brief on Monday night, it referred questions to the Justice Department.
The Justice Department said it is “not aware of any evidence that the president contacted law enforcement agencies 20 years ago.”
The summary is one of millions of documents released by the Justice Department in late January related to Epstein and Maxwell, who is serving a 20-year sentence for recruiting underage girls for sexual abuse.
This image released by the Department of Justice in Washington, D.C., on December 23, 2025, shows Ghislaine Maxwell and Donald Trump as part of new documents in the investigation into the late financier and convicted sex offender Jeffrey Epstein. us
US Department of Justice | via Reuters
Maxwell appeared virtually Monday before the House Oversight Committee investigating the Epstein scandal, but refused to answer questions, citing his Fifth Amendment right against self-incrimination.
Maxwell’s lawyer, David Oscar Marcus, said in a statement that Maxwell intends to be “full and honest” if President Trump grants him a presidential pardon. The pardon could include a pardon to vacate Maxwell’s conviction or a commutation of his sentence to allow him to be released earlier than scheduled.
“She is the only one who can provide a complete explanation. Some people may not like what they hear, but the truth matters,” Marcus said. “For example, both President Trump and President (Bill) Clinton are innocent of any wrongdoing. Only Mr. Maxwell can explain why, and the public has a right to that explanation.”
Mr. Clinton and his wife, former Secretary of State Hillary Clinton, were subpoenaed to testify about Mr. Epstein before the Oversight Committee. They are scheduled to be expelled there in late February.
