The late financier and sex offender Jeffrey Epstein believed Donald Trump was the “rat” who informed on him to the FBI, leading to his 2006 arrest and sentencing for offenses involving underage girls, the Trump biographer Michael Wolff said.
“Trump was aware of what was going on in Epstein's house for a very long time … and … he then used that against Epstein,” Wolff said.
Wolff made the startling claim on Wednesday — the same day that, in the latest in a series of bombshell revelations, the Wall Street Journal reported that Trump has been told his name appears in the so-called Epstein files that recorded investigations into the financier’s conduct.
Trump’s links to Epstein have billowed into the public consciousness in the past month after a Department of Justice attempt to shut down calls from Trump supporters for the release of Epstein’s supposed “client list” spectacularly backfired.
Since then, repeated attempts by Trump and allies to distract from the scandal have failed; House Republican leadership has adjourned early for the summer, to avoid a vote on releasing the Epstein files; and Trump’s own DOJ has said it wants to interview Ghislaine Maxwell, Epstein’s former girlfriend who was imprisoned after being convicted of sex trafficking charges.
Epstein and Trump are known to have been close friends for some time, with new photos of their socializing released this week by CNN.
But Wolff, who was speaking to The Court of History, a podcast hosted by the former Clinton aide turned Lincoln biographer Sidney Blumenthal and Sean Wilentz, a Princeton history professor, said that in 2004 the two men fell out over what Epstein alleged to be a money laundering scheme involving a Florida property, Trump, and a Russian oligarch.
“And at that point,” Wolff said, “the investigation of Epstein began, and Epstein … believed that it began because Trump notified the police about what was going on at Epstein's house, which Trump was fully aware of, because he was a frequent visitor to the house.”
Epstein was arrested but ultimately received a lenient deal from Florida authorities, pleading guilty to state charges of soliciting prostitution and soliciting prostitution from someone under the age of 18, and being sentenced to 18 months in a low-security jail.
His avoidance of federal charges became an issue in 2019, when he was arrested again, while Trump was first in the White House. In August that year, Epstein died in federal custody in New York. Authorities said he killed himself.
Trump has said his friendship with Epstein ended because Epstein was a “creep.”
On Wednesday, Blumenthal asked: “So Epstein believed that Donald Trump was an informant, or in Trump's own words, a rat.”
Wolff said yes, and confirmed that Epstein told him so personally.
Wolff has frequently detailed his extensive interviews with Epstein, sometimes sharing excerpts. Many were carried out during research for Wolff’s first book on Trump’s entry to politics, Fire and Fury, which was a huge bestseller in 2018.
Three more Wolff Trump books followed, two on his first term and 2020 defeat by Joe Biden, then last year All or Nothing, about how Trump returned to power despite criminal convictions, multimillion-dollar civil penalties and undecided criminal cases involving the retention of classified information and his incitement of the January 6th insurrection.
Trump and his aides have regularly abused and derided Wolff. The author has frequently spoken to Blumenthal and Wilentz about his relationship with Epstein and the tapes of their conversations, including recently saying a series of major publishers called the tapes “too hot to handle.”
On Wednesday, Wolff repeated his description of compromising photographs of Trump and Epstein with young girls, which he says Epstein showed him and which Wolff says would presumably have been confiscated by the FBI in 2019.
Trump vehemently denies wrongdoing relating to Epstein and has angrily demanded his supporters focus on other issues – without success, Trump and key allies having long stoked the notion that Epstein is key to various rightwing conspiracy theories.
Being labeled a “rat” by a former close friend would likely sting Trump, who has used the word to deride people who co-operate with law enforcement.
In 2018, for example, Trump used the word rat to describe Michael Cohen, his former attorney and fixer who ended up going to jail despite co-operating with investigations of Trump.
Yet Trump is widely reported to have been close to the FBI himself. In 2016, the Washington Post reported on Trump’s links to an informant, Daniel Sullivan, during his time in the casino business.
Trump denies such links. In 2019, asked if he would tell the FBI if a foreign government offered him dirt on a political opponent, he told ABC: "I'll tell you what, I've seen a lot of things over my life. I don't think in my whole life I've ever called the FBI. In my whole life.
“You don't call the FBI. You throw somebody out of your office, you do whatever you do."
On Wednesday, Blumenthal asked Wolff: “What was [Epstein’s] view of Trump for serving as the snitch?”
Wolff said: “Epstein believed that Trump dropped a dime on him, and that began his legal difficulties. And that's, I think, a significant window into Donald Trump.
“But the perhaps broader point is that Trump was aware of what was going on in Epstein's house for a very long time before this and because of that awareness, which he had not previously disclosed, he then used that against Epstein.”
Blumenthal said: “But he'd also been a participant, as Epstein showed through the photographs he displayed to you.”
Wolff said: “Yes. That is all I know, is that Donald Trump knew what was going on at Jeffrey Epstein's house. There was a set of photographs in which he was with girls of indeterminate age around Epstein's pool.
“I mean, let me not go further than that. That's what I know.”
