White House press secretary Karoline Leavitt said Tuesday that President Donald Trump’s alleged phone call to the Palm Beach police chief in 2006, wherein Trump allegedly told him, “Thank goodness you’ re stopping [Epstein],” dismantles establishment narratives.
Leavitt’s comments came at a White House press briefing after the Department of Justice released a document from a 2019 interview between former Palm Beach Police Chief Michael Reiter and the FBI.
Per the document, Reiter said Trump told him, “thank goodness you’ re stopping him, everyone has known he’s been doing this,” and Ghislaine Maxwell “is evil and to focus on her.” The document also states that Trump told Reiter he booted Epstein from his Mar-a-Lago club and that Trump “was one of the very first people to call when people found out that they were investigating” Epstein. Reiter told the Miami Herald the call occurred in July 2006.
Leavitt said she is not sure whether the call between Trump and Reiter took place, but if it did, it supports what Trump has long said.
“Look, it was a phone call that may or may not have happened in 2006. I don’t know the answer to that question. What I’m telling you is that what President Trump has always said is that he kicked Jeffrey Epstein out of his Mar-a-Lago club because Jeffrey Epstein was a creep,” she said.
“And that remains true, and this call, if it did happen, corroborates exactly what President Trump has said from the beginning,” she added.
She said that reporters likely saw cracks in their narratives on the relationship between Trump and Epstein after reading the FBI report.
“And I’m sure many of you, when you read that alleged FBI report, probably thought to yourself, ‘Wow, this really cracks our narrative that we’ve been trying to push about this president for many years.’ So we’re moving on from that,” she said.
