Trump's latest Epstein excuse: "He stole" Virginia Giuffre from the Mar-a-Lago spa

Ah, the old "he stole my underage spa employee" defense — truly the stuff of presidential greatness. On Tuesday, President Trump released the latest chapter in his ever-morphing Epstein saga. The headline? Jeffrey Epstein was banished not for, you know, the whole child-sex-trafficking thing, but for the far more heinous crime of personnel poaching. Apparently, you can traffic minors, but you do NOT poach Mar-a-Lago's "best spa in the world" talent.

Trump's remix goes like this: Epstein snatched a 16-year-old spa worker — Virginia Giuffre — right out from under the hot-stone tables. Yes, that Virginia Giuffre — the one court records show was groomed, trafficked, and serially abused by Epstein and his co-conspirator Ghislaine Maxwell from 2000 to 2002. The same child who, per sworn testimony, was personally recruited at Mar-a-Lago by Maxwell herself, then flown around the world on Epstein's jet so the duo could pass her around like a party favor. The girl who finally escaped only after she was shipped off to massage school in Thailand in 2002.

"Stealing" Giuffre and "people that work in the spa" was the final straw. The president even tossed in the footnote that Giuffre "had no complaints about us," which is a neat trick of self-exoneration wrapped in victim-diminishment.

But wait — a timeline compiled by investigative journalist Judd Legum reveals multiple glaring inconsistencies:

Exhibit A: October 2002. New York Magazine rolls out Trump gushing that Epstein is "a terrific guy" who enjoys "beautiful women…on the younger side." By Trump's shiny new timeline, this praise was published after Epstein's alleged grand-theft-spa-teen heist.

Exhibit B: November 2004 phone logs. Trump rings Epstein—twice — the same month they bid against each other for a $41 million Palm Beach mansion. Hard to ghost someone when you're speed-dialing them to play Monopoly with real estate.

Exhibit C: July 2019. Trump says they hadn't spoken "in 15 years," which would place the last conversation in 2004 — yep, those very same phone logs. When is Trump going to sue math for lying?

Exhibit D: October 2007. According to actual membership records, Epstein's still waltzing through Mar-a-Lago like it's a black-tie parole hearing. The Trump Organization's own lawyer claimed the ban happened that year — because of Epstein's 2006 felony charges, not because Trump was worried about him stealing underage girls from his "great spa."

And now, in 2025, we get the spa-heist revisionism, sprinkled with a casual, "I think she worked at the spa… yeah, he stole her." It's a plot twist worthy of a telenovela, if telenovelas trafficked in victim-erasure and geopolitical impunity.

So take your pick, America. Door #1: Trump ditched Epstein in 2000 over employee theft. Door #2: Trump toasted Epstein as "terrific" in 2002. Door #3: Trump phoned him for mansions in 2004. Door #4: Trump banned him in 2007 only after the feds filed charges. Door #5: The White House says Epstein was 86'd for being "a creep," no spa caper required. Door #6: Epstein was a dirty. low-down, no-good spa-employee poacher.

As the conflicting excuses and explanations mount, so do the questions as to what really happened. Legum asks: "What occurred at the Mar-a-Lago spa, and what did Trump know about it? What actions did Trump actually take after learning Epstein had 'stolen' underage girls from his club? Why has Trump offered several inconsistent accounts of his relationship with Epstein? What information might Maxwell, who Trump may pardon, have about all of these topics?"

Previously:
• 'New discrepancies' found in Epstein jail video
• Trump files $10 billion lawsuit against Wall Street Journal over alleged Epstein birthday card
• The prosecutor who helped a rich serial child rapist escape justice is now a Trump Cabinet member
• TDS details Trump's relationship with Epstein and Ghislaine Maxwell
• Trump fires federal prosecutor who headed Epstein-Maxwell investigation
• FBI deployed 1,000 agents to search Epstein files for Trump mentions, whistleblower says
• Metadata implies FBI's 'raw' Epstein jail footage was spliced