Donald Trump stated this week {that a} recognized Epstein sufferer was one of many individuals “stolen” from Mar-a-Lago by the convicted intercourse offender. Might Trump have recognized what would occur to her?
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A message calling on President Donald Trump to launch all recordsdata associated to Jeffrey Epstein is projected by an activist group onto the US Chamber of Commerce constructing throughout from the White Home in Washington, DC, on July 18, 2025.
(Photograph by Alex Wroblewski / AFP)
Can Virginia Roberts Giuffre, one of many best-known victims of Jeffrey Epstein and Ghirlaine Maxwell’s sex-trafficking crimes, presumably get one thing approaching justice, simply months after her suicide at 41? Maybe not within the quick time period, whereas Donald Trump is abusing her reminiscence by calling her one of many Mar-a-Lago ”individuals” Epstein “stole” from him.
When Trump first made the accusation about his once-close good friend on Monday, he didn’t point out Giuffre.
“For years I wouldn’t discuss to Jeffrey Epstein, as a result of he did one thing that was inappropriate…. He stole those who labored for me.… And he did it once more. So I threw him out of the place (Mar-a-Lago). I’m glad I did.”
However he introduced up the problem once more, touring with reporters on Air Pressure One. When one among them requested if he was referring to Giuffre, he stated sure. “I believe she labored on the spa. I believe so. I believe that was one of many individuals. He stole her. And by the best way, she had no complaints about us… none in any way.”
“None in any way”? Giuffre steadily instructed investigators she was not the one younger girl “procured” by Epstein and Maxwell at Mar-a-Lago. Sure certainly, Donald, she had “complaints” about your shut associates’ utilizing your resort as their sex-trafficking poaching grounds. “We now know from the phrases of the President himself that Virginia was proper all alongside, and that she was trafficked out of Mar-a-Lago,” one among her attorneys instructed CNN on Thursday.
Giuffre’s household additionally responded, telling The Atlantic on Wednesday evening that they had been shocked that Trump would overtly describe her as “stolen.”
“It makes us ask if he was conscious of Jeffrey Epstein and Ghislaine Maxwell’s prison actions, particularly given his assertion two years later that his good good friend Jeffrey ‘likes girls on the youthful facet…little question about it,’” Giuffre’s two brothers and her sisters-in-law instructed The Atlantic. “We and the general public are asking for solutions; survivors deserve this.”
What was meant to be a “enjoyable summertime job” for the high-schooler led to at the least three years of intercourse trafficking, her household added. And regardless of the nice resilience that led her to develop into a champion of trafficked women and girls, it additionally left wounds that had been reopened by a violent marriage and contentious divorce, all resulting in her suicide, from which her household says it’s nonetheless “reeling.”
The Roberts household isn’t just outraged by Trump’s informal invocation of their sister as merely a employee Epstein poached from him. They’re additionally talking out in regards to the information that Trump’s deputy lawyer common (and former protection lawyer). Todd Blanche. met with Maxwell, who’s serving 20 years in jail for her conviction on intercourse trafficking and different expenses, over two days final week.
“If our sister might communicate right now, she can be most angered by the truth that the federal government is listening to a recognized perjurer, a girl who repeatedly lied below oath and can proceed to take action so long as it advantages her place,” Giuffre’s household instructed The Atlantic.
CNN reported that Maxwell was negotiating over a subpoena from the Home Oversight Committee, and insisting on immunity for any data she would possibly present.
“I don’t assume there are lots of Republicans that need to give immunity to somebody that will have been intercourse trafficking youngsters,” GOP committee chair James Comer stated final week, at the least establishing a backside line on little one intercourse trafficking for bottom-dwelling Republicans. Good to know.
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Ican’t assist however take into consideration so lots of Trump’s broadly recognized sexual predations, which nonetheless didn’t bar him from a second time period as president. I really feel too exhausted to record greater than the highlights: the Entry Hollywood tape the place he admits he’s a sexual assaulter; E. Jean Carroll’s vindication when Trump turned an adjudicated rapist after a jury believed her claims that he sexually assaulted her in a division retailer dressing room; Stormy Daniels’s claims he paid her to cowl up a tawdry affair whereas he was working for president in 2016.
However one story about Trump that surfaced in 2016 didn’t get a lot traction. This week author Kate man went into vivid and, till now, wildly under-reported element in regards to the allegation by “Katie Johnson” (a pseudonym that she adopted) that Trump raped her at an Epstein celebration when she was 13. “It was broadly dismissed when it surfaced in 2016 partly as a result of what Katie was saying was judged simply too unbelievable when it got here to Epstein’s intercourse trafficking of teenybopper ladies,” Manne writes on her Substack, noting that the blockbuster Epstein exposé by the Miami Herald’s Julie Okay. Brown didn’t seem till 2018. Johnson was additionally stated to have been coached in her story by an allegedly unscrupulous, Democrat-friendly handler.
Providing a set off warning on the prime of her publish—take into account this a warning, as effectively—Manne goes into nice element about Johnson’s story, which is stomach-churning. (Go to Manne’s Substack to learn it in full.) I’ll simply clip this, a couple of “rape fantasy” Trump stated he needed to enact with {the teenager}:
(Trump) ripped off all my garments and he began to principally have intercourse with me and I used to be screaming. I’d by no means had intercourse earlier than, it was my first time and (Epstein’s handler) Tiffany was yelling at him too. She was saying I used to be a virgin and he instructed us to only shut the fuck up and simply principally took my virginity whereas I used to be crying and telling him to cease and principally begging for him to only cease…
(Afterward) I used to be crying and Tiffany was consoling me and he or she was apologizing. She instructed me that she would by no means put me in that state of affairs once more. However he comes over mad as a result of I used to be crying and he stated that I needs to be grateful that somebody like Donald Trump took my virginity. Nicely, he didn’t say took my virginity. He stated, I needs to be glad that somebody like Donald Trump popped my cherry and never some pimply little 14 yr previous. And I simply was like, “What if I get pregnant?” Not even speaking to him. I didn’t need to discuss to him. I used to be speaking to Tiffany and he stated, “Nicely you’ll get an abortion then, bitch.”
The lady Johnson recognized as Tiffany submitted a sworn affidavit confirming the story, in response to Manne.
I bear in mind studying about Katie Johnson in 2016 and deciding to forgo circulating her story as a result of, certainly, it was so excessive (and but, not unimaginable for Trump, even again then). Manne concludes, sarcastically I believe, that the actual “conspiracy concept” about Trump-Epstein is that so many younger girls who didn’t know each other have come ahead with such comparable tales. She lists most of them. You need to learn the entire piece (which incorporates Manne’s full transcript of Johnson’s video.)
I went into the sick proprietary connotations of the phrase Trump used about Giuffre—“stolen”—on Tuesday. However the truth that he acknowledged her title, might he have recognized what Epstein “stole” her for? She labored for him 25 years in the past, and clearly he is aware of her title from the protection of Epstein’s and Maxwell’s crimes. However the best way he blithely admitted that Giuffre was one of many ladies Epstein “stole,” means that he definitely did, and does.
I’m sorry that this sick episode is inflicting ache for Giuffre’s household. However I’m hoping it should trigger much more ache for Trump, and someday quickly.
Joan Walsh
Joan Walsh, a nationwide affairs correspondent for The Nation, is a coproducer of The Sit-In: Harry Belafonte Hosts The Tonight Present and the writer of What’s the Matter With White Individuals? Discovering Our Means within the Subsequent America. Her new e-book (with Nick Hanauer and Donald Cohen) is Company Bullsh*t: Exposing the Lies and Half-Truths That Defend Revenue, Energy and Wealth In America.
