'I never had the privilege of going to his island': Trump distances himself from Epstein files claiming 'whole thing is a hoax'
Trump has insisted he did not ‘have the privilege’ of visiting Epstein’s notorious island where sex abuse took place in another attempt to distance himself from the sex trafficker.
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The US president has been plagued by the Epstein files after his administration came under fire for claiming the client list of the notorious sex trafficker and paedophile ‘doesn’t exist’.
The public, and large swathes of Trump’s supporter base, have been demanding answers about the disgraced financier's child sex trafficking ring and the list which allegedly contains the names of Epstein’s associates.
They are purported to contain more than 1,000 pages of court records, and Trump’s former colleague and friend Elon Musk has claimed Trump’s name is in the files, which is “the real reason they have not been made public.”
Speaking to reporters alongside Prime Minister Keir Starmer at his Trump Turnberry golf resort, the US president said he ‘never had the privilege’ of going to the sex trafficker's private island.
“I never had the privilege of going to his island, and I did turn it down, but a lot of people in Palm Beach were invited to his island,” Trump said.
“In one of my very good moments, I turned it down. I didn't want to go to his island,” he added.
Read more: Justice Department to meet Ghislaine Maxwell behind bars over Epstein 'client list'
The paedophile financier was found dead by suicide in his Manhattan cell in 2019, shortly after his arrest on sex trafficking charges.
But many claim the paedophile didn’t kill himself, amid conspiracy theories claiming he was killed to protect elites he might have supplied underage girls to, and those who visited his private island where child sexual abuse took place.
Trump has been attempting to distance himself from the scandal, which has descended into a political crisis within his Maga base, but pressure is mounting on the president after his U-turn on the files, which he promised to release during his election campaign.
Tensions ramped up when his administration’s justice department claimed the infamous client list ‘didn’t exist’ and that no "further disclosure would be appropriate or warranted", when his attorney general, Pam Bondi, had claimed the list was “sitting on my desk right now to review" in a February interview with Fox News.
Despite the long-running saga which continues to make headlines, Trump told reporters on Monday he ‘hasn’t been overly interested’ in the scandal.
“You know, it’s a hoax that’s been built up way beyond proportion. I can say this. Those files were run by the worst scum on earth … The whole thing is a hoax. They ran the files.”
He claimed his opponents could have put material in the files that was fake, and suggested his relationship with Epstein wasn’t as strong as reported.
"For years, I wouldn't talk to Jeffrey Epstein," he told reporters."I wouldn't talk because he did something that was inappropriate.
"He hired help, and I said don't ever do that again. He's stolen people that work for me, I said don't ever do that again. He did it again, and I threw him out of the place.
"I threw him out and that was it."
He also said he had not been asked to pardon Ghislaine Maxwell, Epstein’s longtime accomplice serving a 20-year sentence for sex trafficking.
The justice department is reportedly set to meet Maxwell, who is also the former partner of dead sex offender Jeffrey Epstein, over the alleged client list.
“If Ghislane Maxwell has information about anyone who has committed crimes against victims, the FBI and the DOJ will hear what she has to say,” Attorney General Pam Bondi said.
Questioned whether he had been asked to give the British woman a pardon, the US president told reporters: "Well, I'm allowed to give her a pardon, but nobody's approached me with it. Nobody's asked me about it.
"It's in the news - that aspect of it - but right now, it would be inappropriate to talk about it."
He later continued to try to distract from his connection to the Epstein case, saying: “People should really focus on how well the country is doing, or they should focus on the fact that Barack Hussein Obama led a coup.”
“Or they should focus on the fact that Larry Summers from Harvard, that Bill Clinton, who you know very well, and lots of other friends, really close friends, of ... Jeffrey Epstein should be spoken about and they should speak about them, because they don't talk about them. They talk about me. I have nothing to do with the guy,” he said.
“Todd is a great attorney, but you want to be speaking about Larry Summers. You ought to be speaking about some of his friends that are hedge fund guys. They're all over the place. You ought to be speaking about Bill Clinton, who went to the island 28 times.
“I never went to the island. I don't even know what they're talking about.”