What's Trump Hiding? [View all]

Most Americans interested in Epstein and Trump have seen the old video of them together at a party, whispering and leering at young women. Most have seen quotes from Trump in magazine profiles praising his pal Epstein, who "likes beautiful women as much as I do, and many of them are on the younger side." But if you listen to Michael Wolff, the bestselling Trump biographer and National Magazine Award-winning writer, there is far more to their relationship than a few words and images.

While Trump has repeatedly tried to minimize his ties to Epstein, whom he now calls a "creep," Wolff said "Epstein and Trump had been the best of friends for almost 15 years. ... They were instrumental in each other's rise." The pair "hunted women together," according to Wolff, but fell out, as very rich men do, over real estate. Trump went behind Epstein's back to outbid him on a Palm Beach property that both coveted. Epstein believed that Trump was actually laundering money for a Russian oligarch and threatened to expose him. And then, according to Wolff's recollection of what Epstein told him, Trump "dropped a dime" on his friend's trafficking of young girls to the Palm Beach Police Department. (Which, as Wolff notes, indicates that Trump had long known of the crimes perpetrated at Epstein's house.)

By the time of Trump's ascent to the presidency, Epstein was ready to "drop a dime" of his own. Wolff told Blumenthal and Wilentz how, after Trump's election in 2016, "I was sitting talking to Epstein and he said, 'Wait a minute, I've gotta show you something.'" According to Wolff, Epstein "went into his safe, and he came out with photographs. They were Polaroids, I think, and he kind of spread them out like playing cards. ... It was Trump with girls of an uncertain age, at Epstein's Palm Beach house, where all of the things that (Epstein) would ultimately be accused of took place." He places the date of those pictures around 1999 or 2000.

"And I remember very vividly three of them," Wolff continued. "There are two in which the girls, topless girls, are sitting on Trump's lap. And then a third in which he has a stain on the front of his pants, and the girls are kind of pointing at it, sort of bent over, laughing ... three or four girls." Wolff also said he assumes those photographs were in Epstein's safe when the FBI raided his house and seized every item of potential evidence.

https://www.alternet.org/epstein-trump/