Doubled over with laughter, Jeffrey Epstein couldn’t help himself from cracking up at the joke from his then friend, Donald Trump.
The comment made the pedophile smile broadly.
While the exact words that made Epstein laugh out loud have never been revealed, they show that at the time, the two men were on very good terms.
It was 1992 at Mar-a-Lago, Trump’s beloved Florida home and members club, and what appears to be the start of a friendship of sorts between the two.
Today, Trump denies being close with Epstein or having any role in his pedophilic crimes.
He has, however, ordered the release of any and all grand jury testimony to once-and-for-all silence critics who claim he was involved with Epstein and his ‘list’ of associates.
While Trump today denies ever writing a tawdry birthday card for Epstein, like the Wall Street Journal claims, he has, in the past, confirmed their friendship.
‘I’ve known Jeff for 15 years. Terrific guy. He’s a lot of fun to be with. It is even said that he likes beautiful women as much as I do, and many of them are on the younger side. No doubt about it – Jeffrey enjoys his social life,’ Trump said in a 2002 New York magazine profile of Epstein.
Donald Trump and Jeffrey Epstein at the 1992 party at Mar-a-Lago, surrounded by Buffalo Bills cheerleaders
Whatever Trump said to Epstein about the cheerleaders in front of them left him grinning
By that point, Trump appears to have known Epstein for two decades: both had homes in Palm Beach, Florida, and both moved in similar circles.
The New York Times has reported that in 1992, Trump invited the financier to what was supposed to be a ‘calendar girl’ competition at Mar-a-Lago, his private estate.
George Houraney, a Florida-based businessman who ran American Dream Enterprise and organized the event, said he arranged for some contestants to fly in.
He said: ‘At the very first party, I said, ‘Who’s coming tonight? I have 28 girls coming.’ It was him and Epstein.
‘I said: ‘Donald, this is supposed to be a party with VIPS. You’re telling me it’s you and Epstein?’’ he told The Times.
The same year Epstein was back at Mar-a-Lago for the event with the cheerleaders.
NBC News discovered the footage of the event in its archives from a talk show at the time called ‘A Closer Look’.
The footage shows Trump dancing with the women, cheerleaders for the Buffalo Bills football team, and smiling as one cranes her neck toward him.
Trump, who is wearing a dark suit and pink tie, grabs one woman by the waist and dances with another as they chant: ‘Donald! Donald! Donald!’
Trump turned his residence into a private club after facing financial hardships in the early 1990s
Trump has never denied knowing Epstein or once partying with him. He does however insist that he never played any role in Epstein’s crimes
In a photograph taken eight years after the Mar-a-Lago party, Trump poses with wife Melania, Epstein and Ghislaine Maxwell
He is then seen going to greet three guests who include Epstein, who is seen wearing a light denim shirt.
The two men stand to the side of the dance floor and Trump talks excitedly into Epstein’s ear.
Epstein points one out and Trump points out another, saying: ‘Look at her back there, she’s hot’.
At one point in the footage Ghislaine Maxwell, who is serving 20 years in jail for trafficking minors to Epstein, can be seen walking around.
At the time the video was shot Trump was newly divorced from his first wife Ivana Trump and a year from marrying his second, Marla Maples.
NBC described the footage as the President enjoying his ‘bachelor lifestyle’.
During Maxwell’s trial evidence showed that Trump flew on Epstein’s private plane, dubbed the ‘Lolita Express’, seven times in the following years.
Trump took four trips in 1993, and one in 1994, 1995 and one in 1997.
The 1994 trip included Marla, Tiffany and a nanny which appeared to refer to his then wife Marla Maples and infant daughter Tiffany.
The 1995 trip was with his son Eric, who was one at the time.
Furious: Trump took to Truth Social last night to angrily deny The Wall Street Journal’s report
But by 2004 Epstein and Trump had a falling out over a property in Palm Beach that had gone into foreclosure: the President outbid his friend.
In March 2005 police in Palm Beach began investigating Epstein after a tip about young women going to his home.
That led to his indictment in 2006 and his sweetheart plea deal in 2008 whereby he served just 15 months in a state prison for soliciting a minor for prostitution.
Afterwards Trump said that ‘like everybody in Palm Beach, I knew him’, adding that he was ‘not a fan’.
Epstein’s arrest in 2019 put the heat on anyone associated with him, which only escalated with his suicide a few weeks later while awaiting trial on child sex trafficking charges.
Maxwell was arrested in 2020. That year, Trump made the first of a series of curious comments about her.
President Trump has now asked US Attorney General Pam Bondi to release ‘any and all’ grand jury testimony about Epstein to silence those who believe he is hiding incriminating evidence
Speaking to Axios, the President said: ‘I do wish her well. I’m not looking for anything bad for her.
‘I haven’t really been following it too much. I just wish her well, frankly.
‘I’ve met her numerous times over the years, especially since I lived in Palm Beach, and I guess they lived in Palm Beach’, referring to the Florida town where his Mar-a-Lago club is’.
Trump added: ‘But I wish her well, whatever it is’.
That same year Trump is said to have anxiously asked aides if Maxwell mentioned him after her arrest.
New York Times journalist Maggie Haberman wrote in her book ‘Confidence Man’, which was about the President, that he said: ‘She say anything about me?’
Trump’s interest was piqued by an article published in July 2020 in the New York Post which said Maxwell would ‘name names’.
He twice pressed his aides who were left in stunned silence, Haberman claimed.
While he ran for the Presidency a second time, Trump has given mixed signals about releasing more material related to Epstein.
Speaking to Fox News he said: ‘I guess I would.
‘I think that less so because you don’t want to affect people’s lives if it’s phony stuff in there, because it’s a lot of phony stuff with that whole world. But I think I would’.
Trump has resorted to calling the Epstein story a ‘hoax’ created by Democrats amid a storm created by his own law enforcement officials who essentially shut down the investigation into the late financier on July 7th.
In a two page memo, the Department of Justice and the FBI said there was no evidence of Epstein blackmailing anyone, nobody else would be interviewed and there was no ‘client list’.
A bombshell report in the Wall Street Journal on Thursday claimed Trump wrote a ‘bawdy’ 50th birthday card to Epstein which concluded: ‘Happy Birthday – and may every day be another wonderful secret’.
In the text, the paper claimed Trump wrote: ‘We have certain things in common, Jeffrey’ and that both of them know that ‘there must be more to life than having everything’.
The message is said to have included an X-rated drawing of a naked woman, with Trump’s famous signature squiggle written across her genitals to mimic pubic hair.
Trump has vowed to sue the Wall St Journal and said the letter, written in 2003, is ‘fake’.
But it once again raises questions about the friendship between Trump and Epstein.
But last week following the memo from his DOJ, which sparked a MAGA civil war, Trump became irate and said during a cabinet meeting that everyone should move on.
He has now called his supporters ‘weaklings’ for believing a Democrat-run ‘hoax’.
