The latest bombshell report about Jeffrey Epstein calls into question all of President Donald Trump's denials about his relationship with the late sex offender, according to a legal expert.
The Miami Herald's Julie K. Brown reported Monday evening that Trump told then-Palm Beach police chief Michael Reitner in July 2006 that Epstein's activities were known to "everyone" in New York and Palm Beach, and he encouraged the investigator to "focus" on Ghislaine Maxwell, whom he described as "evil."
Former prosecutor Joey Jackson told to "CNN News Central" the significance of that report, which is based on an FBI interview with Reitner in October 2019 that was among millions of documents released late last month to comply with the Epstein Files Transparency Act.
"I make a lot of it, you know, and again, [the] president hasn't been charged," Jackson said. "We'll see, you know, what happens, meaning prior, there's been no criminal activity associated with him yet. But here's the issue: I would say that this is what we call a prior inconsistent statement. What we do in courtrooms every day throughout the country [is], you can say whatever you want."
"[Trump has said] 'don't know Jeffrey Epstein, wasn't really a friend of mine, didn't know his activities, wasn't aware,'" Jackson added. "But when you're confronted with something you specifically said, when you're confronted with a document that controverts exactly what you're saying, you have some explaining to do."
The police chief's statement to the FBI in 2019, about two months after Epstein was found dead in his cell while awaiting trial on sex trafficking charges, undercut the 79-year-old president's disavowals of the late financier and his convicted co-conspirator Maxwell.
"If your narrative is 'I didn't know, I was unaware, didn't really know the guy, didn't really hang out with the guy,' and then there's this that comes up, if it is corroborated and supported, which would suggest that you knew a lot more, then that means that you've been misleading," Jackson said. "That means that you haven't been fully truthful with the American people. That becomes problematic."
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