Former police chief says Trump praised Epstein probe: 'Thank goodness you’re stopping him'
WASHINGTON, DC: Former Palm Beach Police Chief Michael Reiter told the FBI, as part of a 2019 interview, that Donald Trump praised law enforcement for investigating Jeffrey Epstein, telling him, “Thank goodness you’re stopping him.”
This record was part of the documents released on Monday, Feb 9, as part of a batch of previously unreleased Epstein case files.
Trump has repeatedly denied any knowledge of Epstein’s crimes and has said that he cut off contact with the disgraced financier more than 20 years ago.
Trump thanks the police chief
The police chief’s name, Michael Reiter, was redacted from the document on the Department of Justice's website, but the information in the FBI statement tracks with previously public information about Reiter’s role in the investigation that began in 2005.
The information about Trump’s alleged call makes up just a small part of a 4-page FBI report summarizing Reiter’s testimony in October 2019, two months after Epstein’s death.
According to the FBI report, Trump contacted the Palm Beach Police Department after details of the investigation became public.
Reiter told investigators that Trump said he had “thrown Epstein out of his club” and expressed support for the probe.
“DONALD TRUMP told [Reiter] that he threw EPSTEIN out of his club. TRUMP called the [Palm Beach Police Department] to tell him ‘thank goodness you're stopping him, everyone has known he's been doing this,” the FBI report of Reiter’s statement says.
The FBI record indicates Trump urged investigators to scrutinize Ghislaine Maxwell, describing her as “evil” and encouraging law enforcement to continue their work.
Reiter told the FBI that Trump said “people in New York knew Epstein was disgusting.”
The reported call allegedly took place in July 2006, around the time the investigation became public knowledge.
Trump’s longstanding position on the Epstein probe
The documented interview came to the fore after Maxwell’s lawyer called on Trump to grant her executive clemency so that she could speak “honestly” about what she knows.
Trump has consistently maintained that he cut off contact with Epstein more than two decades ago and expelled him from Mar-a-Lago after becoming uncomfortable with his behavior.
Trump was upset after discovering that Epstein was allegedly poaching employees from the Trump club’s spa.
White House press secretary Karoline Leavitt reiterated that position when asked about the FBI interview summary.
On Tuesday, Feb 10, Leavitt reiterated that the president kicked Epstein out of Mar-a-Lago and cut off their relationship.
And when pressed on whether the phone call happened, she replied: "Look [that] phone call that may or may not have happened in 2006. I don't know the answer to that question. What I'm telling you is that what President Trump has always said, is that he kicked Jeffrey Epstein out of his Mar-a-Lago club because Jeffrey Epstein was a creep. And that remains true," she said.
Reiter, a central figure in the first Epstein probe
Reiter was a central figure in the first law enforcement probe of Epstein in Florida.
After repeatedly sparring behind the scenes with local prosecutors, Reiter went public in 2006, expressing his displeasure with the local prosecutor’s decision to take the case to a grand jury instead of charging Epstein directly, according to ABC.
