Donald J. Trump’s ties to the Jeffrey Epstein and Ghislaine Maxwell scandal
Below is a timeline of all the publicly available information (to the best of my knowledge) about the relationship between Donald J. Trump, Jeffrey Epstein, and Ghislaine Maxwell. It is sourced with original media, social media, and court documents.
Unknown 1989: Trump is photographed several times with Ghislaine’s father Robert Maxwell aboard Robert’s yacht The Lady Ghislaine [Daily Mail, Twitter].
There are several other accounts of a relationship between Trump, Robert and Ghislaine Maxwell in the late 80s, for example in Tara Palmeri’s podcast Power: The Maxwells and Craig Unger’s book American Kompromat.
Unknown 1990: Epstein purchases the El Brillo Way property in Palm Beach. It is 1.6 miles from Trump’s Mar-a-Lago [Google Maps]. From Patterson’s book [Filthy Rich]:
And although Epstein had never properly joined the club, Trump’s friendship with Ghislaine Maxwell gave Epstein unlimited use of the facilities.
In Sarah Blaskey, Nicholas Nehamas, Caitlin Ostroff and Jay Weaver’s book The Grifter’s Club, Ostroff claims to have seen a Mar-a-Lago membership registry which indicates Epstein was actually a full member until October 2007 [see Miami Herald].
November 1992: NBC archive footage shows Trump and Epstein being friendly at a Mar-a-Lago party. Ghislaine Maxwell also appears clearly in the background.
Unknown 1992: Businessman George Houraney claims that he organized a “calendar girl competition” at Mar-a-Lago with 28 contestants which was attended only by Trump and Epstein [New York Times]. The rumors are elaborated on by Houraney’s then-wife Jill Harth, who would later sue Trump for a sexual assault which occurred in 1997 [Vanity Fair].
January 1993: Epstein and Trump are photographed with Eric and Ivanka at the Harley Davidson Cafe opening in Manhattan [Dafydd Jones]:
June 1994: Trump allegedly participated in the abuse of Katie Johnson and Maria Doe in NY [Court Listener 1, Court Listener 2, Court Listener 3]. The allegations are discussed in more detail below (April 2016).
Unknown 1994: A Doe claimed in a civil filing against Epstein’s estate that Epstein had showed her off to Trump at Mar-a-Lago in 1994 when she was 14 years old [Court Listener, paragraph 17]. During Ghislaine Maxwell’s 2021 trial, the same survivor (very likely the same, to be clear) reiterated the 1994 encounter, and also claimed that she had competed in a beauty pageant sponsored by Trump the same year [Twitter 1 (innercitypress)].
January 1995: Epstein and Maxwell are photographed at Mar-a-Lago party [Getty].
Unknown 1996: Survivor Maria Farmer names Donald Trump as a likely co-conspirator during her tenure in Epstein’s orbit [The Daily, Youtube 1 (Webb interview), Youtube 2 (Webb interview)], Youtube 3 (TrueAnon interview)]. Maria also claims in an interview with Whitney Webb that Trump’s former wife Ivana assisted Maxwell in recruitment through this period [for example Youtube 1 (Webb interview), Youtube 2 (TrueAnon interview)], though it should be noted that Trump and Ivana were divorced and Trump married to Marla Maples by the time Maria was working for Epstein:
January 1997: According flight logs [Court documents, p. 470] Trump traveled on Epstein’s 727 with Epstein, Epstein’s brother Mark Epstein, and Glenn and Eva Dublin from Palm Beach to Newark in 1997. Indeed, in a 2009 deposition Mark recalls a flight with Trump on Epstein’s 727 [Court documents, pp.73–4], and in a 2019 Washington Post interview elaborated he had personally traveled on Epstein’s plane only once but Trump traveled on it “numerous times.” He also said:
“They were good friends. I know [Trump] is trying to distance himself, but they were.”
April 1997: Trump, Epstein and Ingrid Seynhaeve are photographed at the Victoria’s Secret Angels party at Laura Belle club in NY [Imgur, Filthy Rich].
May 1997: Maxwell is photographed at Donald Trump’s private apartment at Trump International Hotel & Tower [New York Magazine]. Of interest for below, May 1997 is also the month that Trump and his second wife Marla Maples separated.
October 1997: Trump and Maxwell are photographed at Ford’s Models’ 50th anniversary party in NY [New York Daily News]. Trump is wearing the same tie as in this November 1997 photo too [Getty]:
November 1997: “Trump has fallen under the spell of a 20 year-old English girl.” An article appears in London’s Sunday Mirror detailing weekend trip by Maxwell and survivor Anouska de Georgiou from NY to Mar-a-Lago, also claiming Trump put up Anouska in one of his NY apartments afterwards [TheFreeLibrary, The Sunday Mirror].
That’s a whole lot of state boundaries to be gallivanting across and, in my opinion, represents the smoking gun that Trump knew exactly what was going on. Anouska would elaborate on her relationship with Trump in a 2008 interview saying “We’re friends now and I attended his wedding. He’s adorable, he’s been so kind to me. He’s such a generous-spirited person” [Daily Mail].
The above is not the only suggestion that Trump was involved or knew about trafficking within Epstein’s orbit. From Craig Unger [Vanity Fair]:
An associate of Epstein’s who asked not to be identified told me that Epstein showed him one photo of Trump with a topless young girl. In another, the source said, Trump is with two young girls who are said to be laughing as they point out what appears to be a wet spot in an unfortunate location on his pants. The description of the photo suggested that it was a semen stain — but the photos have never been released.
See also April 2016 (the Katie Johnson allegations) and Unknown 2016 (Ghislaine’s acknowledgement of tapes).
Unknown 1997: Trump and Epstein are photographed at Mar-a-Lago [Getty].
Unknown 1997: Journalist Mark Singer recounts traveling on Trump’s plane with Maxwell “one weekend not long ago” in a Trump puff piece [New Yorker].
Unknown 1997: Donald Trump, Maxwell and Ann Jones are photographed in NY [The Mirror].
September 1998: Trump meets his third wife Melania Knauss. The New York Times reports that Epstein “claimed to people” after Trump’s to have introduced Trump to Melania in 1998. These claims are unverified and do not accord with other accounts [Snopes].
February 1999: Trump Model Management (then T Models) is founded. The company would be implicated in trafficking models from Eastern Europe to work in the US without proper visas. Former models have said in the media and in court documents that they lived in tightly packed shared quarters, paid high rents and fees, and received little income [Mother Jones 1, MotherJones 2, Daily Kos, The Daily Beast]. It is relevant because models once contracted to Trump Model Management — such as Russian Anna Malova — also spent time in Epstein’s orbit [Vanity Fair, American Kompromat]. There are also claims that Epstein wanted to set up his own modelling agency emulating Trump’s approach. For example, from journalist Julie K. Brown:
And from a Miami Herald interview with (Epstein and Maxwell co-conspirator) Jean-Luc Brunel’s bookkeeper Maritza Vasquez:
Epstein enjoyed hanging out backstage at beauty pageants and fashion shows with his Palm Beach and New York neighbor and friend Donald Trump, former models said. He admired Trump’s T Models agency — which represented Slovenian model and future first lady Melania Knauss — and wanted MC2 to be just like it, Vasquez said he told her at MC2’s opening party.
Unknown 1999: Survivor Virginia Roberts Giuffre is recruited at Mar-a-Lago by Maxwell [NPR].
Unknown 1999: Rumors that Epstein and Maxwell co-conspirator Jean-Luc Brunel lived in Trump Tower but left “after complaints of night carousing’’ [New York Post, The Guardian].
February 2000: Trump, Epstein, Melania and Maxwell are photographed together at a Mar-a-Lago party [Getty, The Mirror]. There are several photographs from the party and also a contemporaneous Palm Beach Post article about it. Prince Andrew was also in attendance despite Trump’s recent claims not to know him.
March 2000: Epstein reportedly flew from New York to Palm Beach on Trump’s plane in the company of Maxwell and a young woman [Daily Mail].
September 2000: Trump and Maxwell are photographed at the Anand Jon Fashion Show in NY [Getty, Patrick McMullan].
October 2000: Trump, Melania and Maxwell are photographed at Heidi Klum’s hookers and pimps themed party [Daily Mail].
Unknown 2000: British socialite Lady Victoria — a former model within Epstein’s orbit — claims she attended a 14-person London dinner party that included Prince Andrew, Bill Clinton and Donald Trump:
October 2002: Trump acknowledges Epstein’s taste in women “on the younger side” in a New York Magazine puff piece grossly titled “Jeffrey Epstein: International Moneyman of Mystery”. In full once more:
“I’ve known Jeff for fifteen 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.”
In his book Relentless Pursuit, attorney Bradley Edwards recalls an interview with Trump in which Trump claimed the quote was written by Epstein and attributed to him with permission.
November 2002: Trump, Maxwell, Melania and Naomi Campbell attend Dolce & Gabbana Opening at Dolce & Gabbana [Getty].
March 2003: Trump is named as dinner guests at Epstein’s NY townhouse in Vicky Ward’s storied VF puff piece and another New York Magazine gossip piece.
Unknown 2003: In Trump’s 2005 book Trump: How To Get Rich, the hallmark “week in the life” chapter contains this context-less nugget logged at 4:30pm on a Fall Tuesday afternoon:
The mysterious Jeffrey calls in. As mysterious as Jeffrey is, he’s one of the few people I know who can get by on just a first name. My staff never asks for a last name in his case, which in a way puts him up there with Elvis. Not that Elvis calls in much these days, but you never know.
November 2004: Epstein called Trump and spoke on the telephone twice in November, according to message pads seized from Epstein’s El Brillo way property obtained by Vice.
Unknown 2004: Claims that Trump and Epstein fell out about recruitment at Mar-a-Lago and/or a dispute over property deal. The claims about recruitment are elaborated on in Patterson’s book [Filthy Rich] and are corroborated in an affidavit by attorney Bradley Edwards. Note these claims specifically relate to Epstein attempting to recruit the daughter of a Mar-a-Lago member. Survivor Virginia Roberts Giuffre —an employee of Mar-a-Lago — was recruited at there in 1999.
The claims about a dispute over a property deal originate in the Washington Post. Trump and Epstein bid against each other for the former beach front property of nursing home magnate Abe Gosman, which Gosman had purchased from Epstein confidant Leslie Wexner in 1988. Four years after the auction (which Trump won) Trump sold it to Russian businessman Dmitry Rybolovlev for $95 million, more than doubling his investment.
On top of all of this, there’s some confusion about the timing of the ban. The first reports emerged in October 2007 around time of Epstein’s conviction [Page Six]. This timeline is corroborated by the authors of the book The Grifter’s Club, who claim to have sighted a Mar-a-Lago membership registry that indicated Epstein was a full member until October 2007 [Miami Herald].
Finally, journalist Michael Wolfe [Daily Mail] claims that Trump and Epstein may have outed each other to police as a result of the fallout. There are suggestions this is also what Epstein believed [Vanity Fair], however the story is inconsistent with other evidence concerning how the 2005 Epstein investigation began — a concerned mother finding $300 in her disgruntled teen step daughter’s purse.
March 2005: The Palm Beach Police investigation into Epstein begins.
June 2008: Epstein pleads guilty two felony prostitution charges and is sentenced to 18 month prison.
September 2009: Juan Alessi, who worked for Epstein from 1991 to 2002, said in a deposition that Trump “would come, have dinner” at Epstein’s El Brillo way property [Court Document]. He also says Trump did not take massages while he was there.
Unknown 2009: Attorney Bradley Edwards claims that Donald Trump was the only person to respond to a series of subpoenas issued to Epstein’s influential friends. He said:
Unknown 2010: Epstein pleaded the fifth when asked if he had ever socialized with Trump in the presence of females under the age of 18 [Court Document line 105].
March 2011: In a Daily Mail interview with journalist Sharon Churcher, survivor Virginia Roberts Giuffre claims:
“Donald Trump was also a good friend of Jeffrey’s. He didn’t partake in sex with any of us but he flirted with me. He’d laugh and tell Jeffrey, “You’ve got the life.”
In court documents Virginia claims the headlines were invented by Churcher, that Trump had not flirted with her, nor had she seen him with any minors, nor at any of Epstein’s properties in USVI, NM or NY [Court Document p25–6]. We know from other sources above that Trump did visit Epstein in NY and Palm Beach, however.
December 2013: Epstein’s plane N212JE is photographed parked next to Trump’s N757AF in Palm Beach [flickriver].
January 2015: Trump is named (as well as Ivana, Ivanka and Robert) in Epstein’s little black book after it turned up in court proceedings [Gawker]. Trump was identified by the butler who provided the book as a potential “material witness.”
February 2015: At the annual Conservative Political Action Conference, Trump brings up Epstein and Clinton’s relationship [Youtube, Bloomberg Politics]:
It has been reported that Trump met with AMI CEO David Pecker in the weeks leading up to the conference and discussed copies of the National Enquirer’s coverage of the now infamous Prince Andrew photo [VF]:
“Trump said that Pecker had told him that the pictures of Clinton that Epstein had from his island were worse,” recalls a former Trump Organization employee [Sam Nunberg].
The journalist corroborated the incident with Michael Cohen (from prison). The claims are also promulgated several years earlier in Roger Stone’s October 2015 book The Clinton’s War on Women:
A former editor of the National Enquirer told us that his reporters had learned that Maxwell has retained a photo of former president Bill Clinton in a compromising position with a seventeen-year-old.
Although salacious, it is difficult to ascertain their credibility. On one hand, only convicted felons have repeated them. On the other, from January 2015 —around the same time the rumors originated —until Trump’s GOP nomination, Roger Stone was pointedly targeting Clinton’s ties to the scandal in publications such as The Daily Caller, The Sunshine State News, and on Hannity (twice), as well as a whole chapter in his 2015 book. Furthermore, in a November 2016 Infowars segment Stone may have let slip that he knew about Virginia’s allegations against former Democratic Governor Bill Richardson and former Democratic Senator George J. Mitchell three years before the public:
Neither of these details are conclusive — the rumors could still be simply made up. Still, Trump’s comments (in February) can be taken in the context of an escalating attack on Clinton (from early January) for his ties to the burgeoning Epstein scandal. When Trump announced he would run for the Republican nomination Roger Stone and the conservative talk shows went quiet.
April 2016: Katie Johnson’s accusation from 1994 are filed in CA anonymously and without counsel [Court Documents, Buzfeed]. David Pecker’s perennially suspicious RadarOnline broke the news:
Trump told Radar moments ago: “The allegations are not only categorically false, but disgusting at the highest level and clearly framed to solicit media attention or, perhaps, are simply politically motivated. There is absolutely no merit to these allegations. Period.”
Pecker’s media organizations would later be implicated in protecting Trump from the allegations in Ronan Farrow’s book Catch and Kill [Newsweek]. For context, Pecker is of Stormy Daniels and Karen McDougal catch-and-kill fame, was instrumental in protecting Harvey Weinstein from sexual abuse allegations for years, and tried to blackmail Jeff Bezos in February 2019. The author of the above RadarOnline piece (Dylan Howard) is Pecker’s right hand man and was the guy who carried out most of these schemes.
The story was shopped about media in a suspicious way and ultimately dismissed. Here is the alleged interview:
May 2016: Donald Trump secures the nomination for Republican candidate for president in the 2016 election.
June 2016: The Katie Johnson allegations resurface in a Huffington Post piece by attorney Lisa Bloom. Bloom offers to represent Johnson in her suit against Trump.
September 2016: The final rendition of the Johnson lawsuit is filed September 30. Bloom announces a 1pm November 2 press conference notably just six days before the election.
October 2016: Pizzagate — a bizarre conspiracy theory linking Hillary Clinton and other top Democrats to satanism and a clandestine sex child trafficking ring — begins to light up social media. A Rolling Stone investigation traces the original Facebook post to a user out of Joplin, Missouri named Carmen Katz. The post, which directly invokes the Epstein scandal, went viral:
Over the coming days and weeks, the conspiracy would be propagated by GOP operatives such as Erik Prince, Mike Cernovich, Roger Stone, and Alex Jones, possibly in an attempt to apply pressure to reopen the Hillary email investigation and/or to deflect from the Johnson allegations. It would culminate two months later in a shooting incident at DC pizza shop called Comet Ping Pong.
November 2, 2016: Katie Johnson pulls out of the highly anticipated press conference with Lisa Bloom in NY and two days later drops her suit. It has been reported she faced death threats in the days before the press conference [Medium].
November 8, 2016: Trump wins the 2016 election.
December 2016: Trump’s campaign manager Kellyanne Conway is photographed with Epstein’s pilot Larry Visoski [Washington Examiner].
Unknown 2016: According to CBS producer Ira Rosen, Ghislaine Maxwell acknowledged that Epstein recorded tapes of Trump (and Clinton) engaged in illegal conduct [Daily Mail]. Ghislaine reportedly told Rosen she didn’t “know where” such recordings were after the Emmy-winning producer asked her to hand over the footage.
January 2017: Trump inaugurated as 45th president of the United States.
April 2017: Alex Acosta, who signed off on Epstein’s sweetheart deal in 2007, is confirmed as Labor Secretary by the U.S. Senate after being nominated by Trump a few months earlier.
April 2017: Trump Model Management is shut down amid immigration controversies.
November 2017: QAnon, another bizarre conspiracy theory about a global cabal of infanticidal pedophiles against which Donald Trump is waging a secret war (whew), first brings up the Epstein scandal in drop #133 [QPub]. It is notable that QAnon recycles many Pizzagate themes including Democratic ties to Epstein. “Q” would go on to make another 37 drops containing the word “Epstein”, 6 containing the word “Maxwell”, and multiple others touching on Epstein related themes such as Bill Clinton’s ties to the scandal [#1055, #3131, #3133, #3363, #3362, #3508], supposed Clinton confidant Rachael Chandler, the temple on Little St. James, Les Wexner, even a shout out to survivor Virginia Roberts Giuffre. Trump and his allies would court the movement throughout his presidency.
December 2017: Rumors that Trump visited Jeffrey Epstein at his El Brillo Way property. Political columnist Seth Abramson argues that it was likely around Christmas time, and also propagates a rumor that Epstein advised Trump on foreign policy in this period [Twitter].
August 2018: A year after leaving Trump’s administration, Steve Bannon is seen entering Epstein’s NY property [Page Six]. The butler who managed Epstein’s Paris property also named Bannon as a guest in in France the same year [franceinfo, New York Post].
28 November 2018: Julie K. Brown’s A Perversion of Justice is published. This is when I started paying attention to the case. While many authors and journalists had come before Brown, her reporting about the plea deal under Acosta struck a nerve with the public and propelled the case from the tabloids and online message boards into the national discussion for the first time.
February 2019: William Barr is confirmed as Attorney General. There are largely unsubstantiated claims that Barr’s father (who served in the Office of Strategic Services, the predecessor to the CIA) provided Epstein with his first job at Dalton School in NY [Daily Beast].
March 2019: Attorney Bradley Edwards, in a conversation with Epstein about the ongoing CRVA litigation, recounts Epstein talking about “friend” Trump and “his boy” Barr [Relentless Pursuit]:
Brad, what is the end goal with the CVRA? Even if you win and the judge rules it’s invalid, there is no way they will prosecute me. This will go all the way up to the attorney general. You know Trump was my friend and Barr is his boy. Let’s end this CVRA thing and be done.
June 2019: Trump meets Prince Andrew for a breakfast meeting in the UK despite recent claims not to know him [Washington Post].
6 July 2019: Epstein is arrested at Teterboro Airport in NJ in a joint investigation by the FBI and the NYPD. The QAnon theorists go wild. An explainer from New York Magazine:
On the Fourth of July, or maybe on the fifth… John F. Kennedy Jr., who faked his own death 20 years ago, would reveal himself, and then, as QAnon interpreter Will Sommer puts it, “team up with Trump and ship a huge number of top Democrats off to Guantanamo Bay” for their participation in these global child-sex rings… Of course, this wild theory turned out to be bogus. It wasn’t until July 6 that the feds handed out an indictment over a global underage sex-trafficking ring implicating U.S. presidents, heads of government, top lawyers, world-famous actors, and a member of the English royal family.
9 July 2019: Trump breaks his silence on the scandal and says this of his relations with Epstein [Politico]:
On the same day Trump advisor Kellyanne Conway elaborated:
12 July 2019: Acosta resigns and Labor Secretary amid growing controversy over his role in Epstein’s 2008 sweetheart deal.
July 2019: Comedian, former The Apprentice staffer, and former Trump pageant staffer Noel Casler negates his NPA and starts sounding off about Trump’s ties to Epstein on social media [Twitter]. Salaciously he claims Epstein was Trumps protege.
10 August 2019: Epstein found dead in his NY jail cell.
11 August 2019: Trump retweets two (QAnon tangential) conspiracy theories linking Bill and Hillary Clinton to Epstein’s death [Bloomberg, Trump Archive 1, Trump Archive 2]. In his usual style Trump would later double down on the statements and deflect to unverified claims from Fox News that Clinton had traveled on Epstein’s plane without his secret service attache:
2 July 2020: Ghislaine Maxwell arrested.
21 July 2020: Donald Trump, referring to Maxwell’s arrest, claims he has not been following the situation and says “I wish her well, frankly” [Fox News]. In an AXIOS interview a week later Trump would double down:
22 July 2020: Epstein’s former Tower’s Financial associate turned victim advocate Steven Hoffenberg told CNN of Trump and Maxwell’s relationship:
There’s no dispute… They knew each other well… He liked her and she liked him.
December 31 2020: Attorney Lin Wood, who had been litigating on behalf of Trump against the 2020 election results, claimed Jeffrey Epstein was still alive [Twitter]. The comments come after a 6 month campaign to tie Chief Justice John Roberts to two entries in Epstein’s flight logs.
January 20 2021: The Trump presidency ends.
