Politics and Money

[lesgetrich]

People in glass houses shouldn't throw stones...

'I wish Ghislaine well, frankly': Trump sends extraordinary message of support to ex-neighbor Maxwell as she awaits trial for sex trafficking minors as the 'madam' of billionaire pedophile Jeffrey Epstein

Donald Trump has sent a message of support to Ghislaine Maxwell as pedophile billionaire Jeffrey Epstein's accused madam awaits her trial for sex trafficking minors.

The president admitted meeting Maxwell 'numerous times' over the years and wished her well in his Tuesday White House press conference - his first since vowing to return to coronavirus news briefings as cases soar across the US.

Trump's connections to Epstein and Maxwell have long come under scrutiny as they mixed in the same wealthy circles for decades, with Trump once describing the convicted pedophile as a 'terrific guy'.

Maxwell, 58, cried as she was denied bail on Tuesday and learned she must stay locked up until her trial next summer, after she pleaded not guilty to charges of luring underage girls so Epstein could sexually abuse them...

...Epstein's sprawling waterfront property in Palm Beach, where many of his victims said they were lured to and sexually abused, is just 1.8 miles down the road from Trump's Mar-a-Lago club.

In 1992, the future president organized a 'calendar girls' party with 28 women, with Epstein and himself the only men, according to Vanity Fair.

The two men were also seen on recently surfaced video footage partying together that year at Mar-a-Lago with cheerleaders from the Buffalo Bills.

In the footage, Trump is heard saying: 'Look at her… she's hot.'

In 1997, Trump also flew from Palm Beach to Newark, New Jersey, on Epstein's plane with Maxwell also aboard.

Now famous photos taken at Mar-a-Lago show the president posing with future First Lady Melania Trump, Epstein and Maxwell later in February 2000...

...Trump heaped praise on Epstein back then calling him a 'terrific guy' who likes women 'on the younger side'.

'He's a lot of fun to be with,' Trump said in an interview with Vanity Fair in 2002.

'It is even said that he likes beautiful women as much as I do, and many of them are on the younger side.'

Trump and Epstein reportedly fell out around 2004, in a dispute over a property purchase.

Four years later in 2018, Epstein pleaded guilty to one count of solicitation of prostitution and one count of solicitation of prostitution with a minor under the age of 18 and was sentenced to 18 months in jail.

The president has since sought to distance himself from Epstein and downplay his relationship with the pedophile.

One month before Epstein died in a New York jail cell in August last year, Trump said he was 'not a fan'.

'I had a falling out with him. I haven't spoken to him in 15 years,' Trump said at a White House press conference.

'I was not a fan of his, that I can tell you.'

Some of Epstein's victims have mentioned Trump and Mar-a-Lago in their accounts of events surrounding the abuse.

The president is mentioned in a civil suit filed by an unnamed woman who is suing Epstein's estate.

The alleged Epstein victim claims her abuser took her to Mar-a-Lago when she was just 14 and showed her to Trump.

She claims Epstein elbowed Trump 'playfully' and said: 'This is a good one, right?'

There is no suggestion Trump knew she was underage or was involved in any abuse.

Roberts Guiffre claims Epstein used Mar-a-Lago to prey on and recruit young girls into his sex-trafficking operation.

She claims she first met the pedophile as a 15-year-old working as a locker room attendant at Mar-a-Lago in 1999.

Newly resurfaced footage from 2015 also shows Trump telling reporters to ask Prince Andrew about Jeffrey Epstein's 'pedophile island'.

In in an interview with Bloomberg, Trump said: 'That island was really a cesspool, there's no question about it.

'Just ask Prince Andrew, he'll tell you about it. The island was an absolute cesspool.'

The connections between the pedophile and the president ramped up last month when Attorney General Bill Barr said Trump had ordered him to fire Geoffrey S. Berman, United States attorney for the Southern District of New York.

Berman's office charged Epstein with child sex trafficking last year.

Epstein was found hanging in his cell at the Metropolitan Correctional Center in Manhattan last August.

His death was ruled a suicide but his attorneys and some family members claim he was murdered to stop him from sharing what he knows about other high profile, powerful people.

Maxwell was denied bail last Tuesday and learned she must stay locked up until her sex trafficking trial in summer 2021.

She is now being held in a Brooklyn jail and pleaded not guilty last week to trafficking minors for Epstein.

Maxwell had been lying low since Epstein's death last year but was arrested earlier in the month, when authorities swooped on her luxury home in New Hampshire where prosecutors say she was hiding out.

She was romantically involved with the pedophile from around 1992, but then became his 'right-hand woman', managing his property empire and, it is alleged, his trafficking of minors.

Maxwell is currently in custody in the Metropolitan Detention Center in Brooklyn where she has been given paper clothes to prevent her committing suicide.