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Donald Trump has reignited controversy surrounding Jeffrey Epstein by claiming that the deceased sex offender ‘stole’ Virginia Giuffre from the spa at Mar-a-Lago.
His pointed comment about Giuffre, who is one of the most prominent accusers in Epstein’s sex trafficking scandal, provoked an intense backlash from her family and sparked a flurry of conspiracy theories regarding the case.
It also raised a key question – how well did the president know her, if at all?
Giuffre died by suicide in April, but she herself did provide the answer to that question nine years ago in a sworn deposition.
Her account was given on oath and offered intriguing glimpses into how many times she met Trump, who with, and how he behaved.
She made no allegations of wrongdoing against the future commander in chief.
The deposition was part of a libel case, launched in 2015, in which Giuffre sued Ghislaine Maxwell for defamation.
Maxwell had called Giuffre’s public claims about sex trafficking ‘lies.’
In November 2016 Giuffre was questioned under oath by Maxwell’s lawyer, Laura Menninger, and the subject of Trump arose.
Giuffre said: ‘I worked for Donald Trump and I’ve met him probably a few times.’
Virginia Giuffre, with a photograph of herself as a teenager
She explained, ‘At Mar-a-Lago, my Dad and him, I wouldn’t exactly call them friends, but my Dad knew him and they would chat regularly—well, not regularly, but whenever they encountered each other.’
Her father, Sky Roberts, was a maintenance man at Mar-a-Lago and, during the summer of 2000 Virginia, who was 16 at the time, worked as a spa locker room attendant.
In her deposition, she said she had never been in the presence of Trump and Epstein together.
Her basis for once having said the two men were ‘good friends’ was because Epstein told her that was the case, she said.
According to the deposition, which involved discussion of Epstein’s high-profile friends, Giuffre said: ‘Donald Trump never flirted with me.’
She added it was ‘true that he (Trump) didn’t partake in any sex with us.’
Asked who she meant by ‘us’ she said other girls.
She went on: ‘I didn’t physically see him have sex with any of the girls, so I can’t say who he had sex with in his whole life or not, but I just know it wasn’t with me when I was with other girls.’
Giuffre also denied a suggestion that she had heard Trump tell Epstein ‘You’ve got the life.’
President Trump said Virginia Giuffre was among workers ‘stolen’ from his Mar-a-Lago spa by Epstein
On Tuesday, Trump revealed that, two decades ago, he got upset with Epstein over his poaching of workers, including Giuffre, from the Mar-a-Lago spa.
White House press secretary Karoline Leavitt later noted the president was responding to a reporter’s question, and did not bring up Giuffre himself.
“The fact remains that President Trump kicked Jeffrey Epstein out of his club for being a creep to his female employees,’ she added.
During his back-and-forth with reporters on Air Force One on Tuesday, Trump indicated that ‘people were taken out of the spa, hired by him (Epstein), in other words gone.’
He was asked: ‘Did one of the stolen persons, did that include Virginia Giuffre?’
The president responded: ‘I don’t know. I think she worked at the spa, I think so, I think that was one of the people, he stole her, and by the way she had no complaints about us, as you know, none whatsoever.’
Virginia Giuffre speaks during a news conference outside a Manhattan court in New York, August 27, 2019
An undated photograph of Jeffrey Epstein and Ghislaine Maxwell provided by the Justice Department
There was an angry response from Giuffre’s family, who are usually reticent to speak publicly.
In a statement they said: ‘It was shocking to hear President Trump invoke our sister and say that he was aware that Virginia had been “stolen” from Mar-a-Lago,”
‘We and the public are asking for answers; survivors demand this.’
Epstein took his own life in a New York jail in 2019 while facing federal sex trafficking charges.
Trump has denied prior knowledge of Epstein’s crimes and said he cut off their relationship around 2004.
In an interview with CNN on Thursday, Giuffre’s brother Sky Roberts said: ‘She wasn’t stolen, she was preyed upon at his property, at President Trump’s property.
‘Stolen seems very impersonal. It feels very much like an object, and the survivors are not objects, women are not objects.’
President Donald Trump at the White House on July 30
Jeffrey Epstein and Donald Trump at Mar-a-Lago in 1997
Donald Trump and future wife Melania Knauss with Jeffrey Epstein and Ghislaine Maxwell at the Mar-a-Lago club, Palm Beach, Florida, February 12, 2000
Virginia Giuffre previously said she was approached by Maxwell in 2000 and eventually was hired by her as a masseuse for Epstein.
But the couple effectively made her a sexual servant, she said, pressuring her into gratifying not only Epstein but his friends and associates.
Giuffre said she was flown around the world for appointments with men including Prince Andrew while she was 17 and 18 years old.
The men, including Andrew, denied that and questioned Giuffre’s credibility.
The prince settled with Giuffre in 2022 for an undisclosed sum, agreeing to make a ‘substantial donation’ to her survivors’ organization.
