"We are asking for answers": Virginia Giuffre's family reacts to Trump's comments about Epstein stealing her from Mar-a-Lago
The president said the child molester was vetoed from Mar-a-Lago because he was taking his staff, including Giuffre, one of the financier's best-known victims.
Virginia Giuffre, Epstein's victim, holding a photo of herself as a teenager
The family of Virginia Giuffre, a key whistleblower in Jeffrey Epstein's crimes, reacted indignantly to recent comments by President Donald Trump, who claimed that Epstein was kicked out of Mar-a-Lago after he learned that the controversial financier was stealing his staff from his spa, including Giuffre.
In a strong statement, the family of Giuffre, who died in April by suicide, said Trump's comments raise questions about how aware he was about his crony's crimes.
"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," the family said. “It makes us ask if he was aware of Jeffrey Epstein and Ghislaine Maxwell’s criminal actions, especially given his statement two years later that his good friend Jeffrey ‘likes women on the younger side … no doubt about it.’ We and the public are asking for answers; survivors deserve this.”
Giuffre, who reported sexual abuse by Epstein when she was still a teenager, had already testified in court that she was taken by Maxwell while working at Mar-a-Lago. When asked about the relationship between Trump and Epstein, the whistleblower said that she never saw the president engaging in inappropriate behavior, even claiming that she did not see him at the financier's properties.
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Still, Giuffre's family sharply questioned Trump over his words to the press. Specifically, the president explained that Epstein was vetoed from Mar-a-Lago when he learned he was hiring his staff. Between questions, he mentioned Giuffre, detailing that she and others on his staff were "stolen" by the financier.
"He hired people who worked for me. When I found out about it, I said, 'Listen, we don't want you to take our people.' And then, not long after that, he did it again. And I said, 'Get out of here.'"
Following the Giuffre family's statement, the White House explained that Trump was only responding to a press question where the term "robbery" was used and that he was not the one who mentioned Giuffre in the first place.
"The fact remains that President Trump kicked Jeffrey Epstein out of his club for being a creep to his female employees," White House press secretary Karoline Leavitt said.
Trump also responded to the statement from the victim's family.
"I said if he's taken anybody from Mar-A-Lago, he's hiring or whatever he's doing; I didn't like it. And we threw him out; we said we didn't want him at the place," the president explained. "I didn't like it that he was doing that."
In the statement, the family also criticized that Deputy Attorney General Todd Blanche met with Ghislaine Maxwell, Epstein's accomplice and former partner.
The family suggested the meeting is a way to dishonor Giuffre's memory, citing the perjury record of Maxwell, who is serving a 20-year sentence in Florida for sex trafficking.
“If our sister could speak today, she would be most angered by the fact that the government is listening to a known perjurer,” they said. “A woman who repeatedly lied under oath and will continue to do so as long as it benefits her position.”
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