Maria Farmer twice reported Donald Trump‘s connection with sex trafficker Jeffrey Epstein to the FBI, shining light on how the president may be mentioned in the Epstein files held by the Justice Department.
Farmer, who worked for Epstein and recently spoke to The New York Times, first went to law enforcement in 1996 to tell them that Epstein and his longtime partner, Ghislaine Maxwell, sexually assaulted her. At the time, Farmer said, she had recently learned that her sister, then a teenager, had a disturbing interaction at Epstein’s New Mexico ranch. Farmer also told law enforcement that Epstein had threatened her. She spoke first with the New York Police Department and later the FBI.
When speaking with investigators, Farmer said she pushed them to not only look into Epstein but also his associates, including Trump, both in 1996 and in 2006 when the FBI interviewed her again. While Farmer said she did not have evidence incriminating Epstein, she shared her concerns at the billionaire’s pursuit of girls and young women while cozying up to powerful people like Trump and former president Bill Clinton.
Farmer recalled an experience meeting Trump in 1995 and shared it with law enforcement. She was preparing to work for Epstein when he asked her to come to his offices in Manhattan. She went, wearing running shorts, and when Trump arrived, she said he hovered over her. She said she felt scared as Trump ogled her legs. When Epstein came into the room, he told Trump, “No, no. She’s not here for you.”
As Trump and Epstein walked away, Farmer said she overheard Trump say he thought she was 16.
Trump, through White House communications director, denied ever visiting Epstein’s office. “The president was never in his office,” Cheung said. “The fact is that the president kicked him out of his club for being a creep.”
Other than creepy leering, Trump has not been accused of any wrongdoing related to Epstein.
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Farmer told the Times that she worked for Epstein in 1995 and 1996, first working to acquire art for him and then to manage visits from girls, young women, and famous people who came to Epstein’s Upper East Side townhouse.
She said that in 1996, while staying at Epstein’s Ohio estate, she was asked to massage Epstein’s feet, then he and Maxwell “violently groped her until she fled the room and barricaded herself in another part of the building,” the Times wrote. She also said that during her stay, two partially nude photos of her sisters went missing from a storage lockbox.
Although lawyers did not call Farmer to testify during Maxwell’s prosecution, he sister Annie testified that Maxwell massaged her bare chest at Epstein’s New Mexico ranch.
Farmer’s mother told the paper she recalled her daughter telling her about the encounter with Trump in Epstein’s office in 1996, the year it happened, and she remembered Farmer going to the FBI that same year. Annie Farmer said her sister told her that she talked to the FBI about Epstein and his ties to Trump and Clinton. The Times confirmed that NYPD records show she spoke to the Sixth Precinct in Aug. 1996. Notes from Farmer’s 2006 interview corroborate her account, the paper said.
Trump claims he broke off his relationship with Epstein 20 years ago, but for a while, Trump and Epstein were associates, seen together multiple times. Trump’s name appears on flight logs from Epstein’s plane and in Epstein’s “black book” of contacts, published by Gawker. A 1992 video shows the two men talking amicably at a party. Photographs depict the two men together on other occasions. In 2002, Trump was quoted saying Epstein was a “terrific guy.”
In a 2003 birthday letter to Epstein purportedly written by Trump and recently published by The Wall Street Journal, Trump called him a “pal” and alluded to a “secret” the two men shared. The letter also reportedly contained a drawing of a nude woman.
Trump denied making the drawing, saying, “I don’t draw pictures,” and claiming he “never wrote a picture in my life,” despite ample evidence that he has drawn frequently. He has even auctioned off several sketches.
The president has been under heightened scrutiny over his relationship with Epstein after the FBI and DOJ recently declined to release its files on him, declaring his death in prison a suicide and claiming he did not have a “client list” — a document many on the far right anticipated would contain the names of powerful individuals. Attorney General Pam Bondi announced that the DOJ would not seek further prosecution related to the contents of the files. Those actions have riled up members of his base who hoped the files’ release would validate theories that Epstein was part of a global child sex trafficking ring made up of powerful people who secretly control society and the government.
From Rolling Stone US