“The president needs to answer for statements he has made about his relationship with Mr. Epstein,” Schumer said in remarks from the Senate floor. “In 2002, he said he had known Epstein for 15 years and he was, quote, a terrific guy who enjoyed women on the younger side, unquote.”
Schumer, who represents New York, also highlighted that Epstein was a regular at Trump’s Mar-a-Lago club in Florida for many years. “The president needs to answer for this,” the senator said. “And ‘I don’t recall’ is not an acceptable answer in this case,” he insisted, “particularly because Mr. Trump appointed [Labor Secretary and former federal prosecutor] Mr. [Alexander] Acosta to such a powerful position.
In his remarks, Schumer also called on Acosta to resign. The labor secretary was the federal prosecutor who controversially struck a plea deal with Epstein’s attorneys that shielded him from federal prosecution back in 2008. Despite numerous women coming forward accusing Epstein of exploiting them sexually while they were minors and significant evidence to corroborate their accounts, the Acosta deal let Epstein serve just one year in a Florida jail while he was also allowed to leave for 12 hours a day to work from his private office. Epstein also paid restitution to some of his victims. A federal judge ruled earlier this year that prosecutors acted improperly by not making victims aware of the plea deal.
Federal prosecutors in New York arrested Epstein Saturday on new charges of sex trafficking of minors at his palatial Manhattan residence. The billionaire hedge fund manager, who was also a close associate of former President Bill Clinton, was arrested this week and his Manhattan townhouse was raided. Prosecutors have said they uncovered hundreds—and possibly thousands—of photos of nude girls.
Epstein allegedly would have the young girls – some as young as 14 – transported to his townhouse where they would be asked to perform nude massages while he would masturbate or touch their genitals. He would then pay them hundreds of dollars and allegedly asked them to recruit more young girls to do the same in the future.
In a 2002 interview with New York magazine, Trump described Epstein as “a terrific guy.” He also praised the billionaire for his taste in women. “It is even said that he likes beautiful women as much as I do, and many of them are on the younger side,” he said.
Asked about Epstein’s arrest on Sunday, Trump said he didn’t “know about it.” Continuing he said: “That I don’t know about.”
On Tuesday, White House counselor Kellyanne Conway said that Trump had told her “this morning” that he had not had contact with Epstein for “over a decade at least.”
A spokesperson for Clinton distanced the former president from Epstein as well. “President Clinton knows nothing about the terrible crimes Jeffrey Epstein pleaded guilty to in Florida some years ago, or those with which he has been recently charged in New York,” a statement shared by his press secretary on Monday said.
