President Trump threw a party in 1992 that was attended by 28 young women from a ‘calendar girl’ competition and just one guest – Jeffrey Epstein.
The New York Times reports that George Houraney, a Florida-based businessman who ran American Dream Enterprise, put the event together at the behest of Trump, then a New York casino owner, and was shocked at what he saw when he arrived at Mar-a-Lago that night.
‘I arranged to have some contestants fly in. At the very first party, I said, “Who’s coming tonight? I have 28 girls coming.” It was him and Epstein,’ said Houraney.
‘I said, “Donald, this is supposed to be a party with V.I.P.s. You’re telling me it’s you and Epstein?”‘
That friendship would pay off years later according to Epstein, who has told a number of people that he introduced Trump to his now-wife Melania.
Melania Trump has only ever said that she and Trump met when the then-real estate mogul asked for her phone number at the Kit Kat Club in 1998 during Fashion Week.
“In those days, if you didn’t know Trump and you didn’t know Epstein, you were a nobody,” said Alan Dershowitz, the longtime Harvard University Law School professor who later served Epstein’s defense team when he was charged with unlawful sex with minors in 2006.
Before Epstein pleaded guilty to the charges, and was mainly known as a reclusive, sweat-shirt-sporting billionaire who liked the company of young women, Trump spoke enthusiastically about their relationship.
“I’ve known Jeff for 15 years. Terrific guy,” Mr. Trump told New York magazine in 2002. “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.”
He also dismissed Mr. Houraney’s warning about his friend’s conduct.
“I said, ‘Look, Donald, I know Jeff really well, I can’t have him going after younger girls,’” Houraney remembers. “He said, ‘Look I’m putting my name on this. I wouldn’t put my name on it and have a scandal.’”
Epstein and Trump, 2000.
Trump did not seem concerned though according to Houraney.
Houraney was partners with Jill Harth at the time, both professionally and romantically, who would go on to file a lawsuit against Trump claiming he sexually harassed her for years after their first meeting.
Trump has denied that allegation.
He would eventually ban Epstein from the club, though he was never an actual member.
A former campaign worker said that he was told this ban was put in place when Trump learned that Epstein had tried to recruit one of his workers.
The were photographed together in the 1990s and early 2000s.
In Manhattan, they attended many of the same dinner parties, like the one that Epstein hosted for Prince Andrew, where the guest list also included Ron Perelman and Mort Zuckerman, among others.
Trump commented on Epstein’s arrest yesterday afternoon while speaking to the media at the White House, saying: ‘I had a falling out with him a long time ago. I wasn’t a fan. I was not a fan of his. That I can tell you.’
He went on to refer to Epstein as a ‘fixture in Palm Beach.’
At least two women who would file lawsuits against Epstein claim that they were recruited at the Palm Beach Club by the pedophile and Ghislaine Maxwell.
Epstein entered a not guilty plea on Monday just hours after it was revealed that an ‘extraordinary volume of photographs of nude and partially-nude young women or girls’ was discovered by agents over the weekend during their search of Epstein’s Manhattan mansion.
Federal prosecutors detailed some of the other evidence discovered inside the home in the bail memorandum, which requests that Epstein remain in prison ahead of trial.
That listed ‘documents and other materials, such as contemporaneous notes, messages recovered from the defendant’s residence that include names and contact information for certain victims, and call records that confirm the defendant and his agents were repeatedly in contact with various victims during the charged period.’
Meanwhile, the search uncovered ‘at least hundreds—and perhaps thousands—of sexually suggestive photographs of fully- or partially nude females.’
A number of those photographs ‘appear to be of underage girls, including at least one girl who, according to her counsel, was underage at the time the relevant photographs were taken.’
It is also noted that some photos were discovered in a locked safe, where agents ‘also found compact discs with hand-written labels including the following: “Young [Name] + [Name],” “Misc nudes 1,” and “Girl pics nude.”‘
The indictment against the billionaire pedophile was unsealed on Monday morning, and states that Epstein ‘enticed and recruited, and caused to be enticed and recruited, minor girls at his mansion in Manhattan and his estate in Palm Beach to engage in sex acts with him.’
There were dozens of these underage girls according to the indictment, who would receive hundreds of dollars after being forced into sex acts or, as the indictment states, finding others to engage ins ex acts with Epstein.
‘Moreover, in order to maintain and increase his supply of victims, Epstein also paid certain of his victims to recruit additional girls to be similarly abused by Epstein, reads the court filing.
‘In this way, Epstein created a vast network of underage victims for him to sexually exploit.’