A MSNBC host was forced to issue a clarification on Sunday after a former assistant U.S. attorney on the panel told a controversial story about Donald Trump and disgraced financier and convicted pedophile Jeffrey Epstein.
Maya D. Wiley, a civil rights attorney who worked in the Civil Division of the U.S. Attorney for the Southern District of New York, appeared on MSNBC over the weekend, where she discussed the fallout over the Trump administration's handling of the Epstein files controversy.
While speaking on the show, Wiley told the story of Maria Farmer, who reported Epstein to authorities in the 1990s, and purportedly mentioned Trump.
"Maria Farmer, who came forward in 1995, went to the FBI, went to law enforcement because she had been sexually assaulted, she says, by Jeffrey Epstein, who ultimately was charged. But she says to them, in two separate occasions, in 96 and in 2006, check out Donald Trump," Wiley said before explaining the purported "reason." "Because she went to Epstein's office late at night, having been called there by Jeffrey Epstein. Donald Trump shows up, starts ... her describing behavior that feels threatening to her sexually. Donald Trump's, the way he is looking at her, she said. She does not claim he violated any law, but was uncomfortable with how he was looking at her. Jeffrey Epstein comes in and says, no, no, no, she's not for you. And then as they walk out, he says, I thought she was 16."
She continued, saying this is why Trump won't turn over the full records on Epstein.
That led the host to interrupt, saying, "I have to remind our viewers he hasn't been charged in connection to any of what you've laid out there."
Wiley responds that her "only point is the question about whether powerful people were engaged in sexual relationships with these children in many instances, who were being sex trafficked is still an open question."
