Trump, Epstein, and the Women
Trump’s attitude toward women has never been unclear. A publicity-seeking businessman, he was always eager to describe his conquests, real or imagined, for the benefit of gossip columnists and talk show hosts. Since he became a politician, the situation has only gotten worse. Around 20 women have publicly accused the president of various forms of sexual misconduct. (He has always denied these accusations.) In 2023, a New York jury awarded writer E. Jean Carroll a five million dollar civil judgment against him for defamation and sexual abuse. She accused Trump of assaulting her in the mid-1990s in a dressing room at the Bergdorf Goodman department store in New York. (Trump has denied Carroll’s version and asked the Supreme Court to overturn the decision.)
On Tuesday, as the Justice Department continued to release the avalanche of documents and photographs collectively known as the Epstein files, some but almost all major media outlets reported on a letter allegedly written by Jeffrey Epstein to Larry Nassar, the former U.S. Gymnastics team doctor who abused hundreds of female athletes and pleaded guilty in 2018 to seven counts of first-degree criminal sexual assault. The letter was postmarked August 13, 2019, three days After Epstein committed suicide in his Manhattan prison cell. The handwritten text reflects contempt for Trump and hints at dark allusions to his past. While the three men shared “a love of nubile young girls,” Epstein reportedly wrote, and the president “loved to ‘grab the snatch,'” only Epstein and Nassar had “ended up stealing the food from the system’s dining halls.” Life is unfair.”
The existence of a letter was cited in a 2023 Associated Press report. But is it real? There is no reason to believe it. Julie K. Brown, the Miami Herald An investigative journalist who has worked on Epstein for many years, wrote on The Department of Justice then announced on X that “the FBI has confirmed that this alleged letter from Jeffrey Epstein to Larry Nassar is FALSE.”
To justify the indecency of this president, it is hardly necessary to provide evidence of a dubious letter. As we continue to daily sift through the detritus of Trump’s accumulated record and biography, we continue to live with the idea that somehow, somewhere, a document or detail will appear so grotesque, so damning, that the country will eventually rise up as one to declare the end of this presidency. Just another case of sexual assault; cruel and illegal deportations; personal financial transactions. Another indulgence of racism and anti-Semitism in the world. MAGA camp; one more scandalous insult launched against a foreign leader or a journalist; one more violation of constitutional and institutional norms.
There has already been a mountain of accurate reporting on Trump’s attitude toward women and the president’s close relationship with Epstein. Among the best and most complete accounts, the one published last week in the Times. Nicholas Confessore and Julie Tate explored countless documents and interviewed more than thirty former Epstein employees, as well as victims. They described the relationship as one of common carnal interest.
“No men drank or did drugs. They pursued women in a game of ego and domination. Female bodies were a bargaining chip,” Confessore and Tate wrote. “For nearly two decades, as Mr. Trump navigated the party circuits of New York and Florida, Mr. Epstein was perhaps his most trusted wingman. During the 1990s and early 2000s, they prowled Mr. Epstein’s Manhattan mansion and Mr. Trump’s Plaza Hotel, at least one of Mr. Trump’s Atlantic City casinos and their two Palm Beach homes. They visited each other and often spoke on the phone, according to other former employees and women of Epstein who spent time at his house. With other men, Mr. Epstein could discuss tax shelters, international affairs or neuroscience.
This passage is the “billboard” of the article, the thesis, and it is amply supported by multiple sources that describe the details of their relationship, how Trump regaled Epstein over the phone “with tales of his sexual exploits” and how Epstein liked to play his baffled aides on speakerphone. Confessore and Tate reported on the recollections of a former Epstein aide, who recounted “a call in the mid-1990s in which the two men discussed the amount of pubic hair a particular woman had and whether there was enough for Mr. Epstein to floss. In another, Mr. Trump told Mr. Epstein that he had sex with another woman on a pool table.”
