President Trump criticized the media's selective coverage of the Jeffrey Epstein scandal, accusing reporters of overlooking prominent Democrats in the financier's orbit such as Bill Clinton, who allegedly visited Epstein's notorious island.
Although Epstein had ties to many high-profile figures, including Clinton, recent reporting has focused almost exclusively on tying Trump to the disgraced financier.
It is well-known that both Trump and Clinton once had friendships with Epstein, but neither president has been accused of wrongdoing.
Trump had a falling out with Epstein in 2004, well before Epstein's first arrest for sex crimes in 2006.
While in Scotland on Monday, Trump explained that Epstein caused a rift in their relationship by stealing workers. Trump also said he never visited Epstein's notorious island, but Clinton traveled there "supposedly 28 times."
“I never had the privilege of going to his island. And I did turn it down,” Trump said. “But a lot of people in Palm Beach were invited to his island. In one of my very good moments, I turned it down. I didn’t want to go to his island.”
While returning to the U.S. on Tuesday, Trump clarified that the workers Epstein "stole" were employees in the Mar-A-Lago spa, and that one of them was Epstein accuser Virginia Giuffre, who died by suicide this year.
In a 2016 deposition that was unsealed last year, Giuffre testified to meeting Clinton twice on Epstein's island and said he must have known about the crimes taking place there, but she never observed Clinton behaving inappropriately.
"Yes, he would be a witness because he knew what my purpose there was for Jeffrey and he visited Jeffrey's island," Giuffre said, according to the transcript. "There's pictures of nude girls all around the house at all of his houses and it's something that Jeffrey Epstein wasn't shy about admitting to people."
Giuffre also said she never observed Trump do anything wrong.
"I don't think Donald Trump participated in anything," Giuffre said, according to the deposition. "That would have to be another assumption. I never saw or witnessed Donald Trump participate in those acts, but was he in the house of Jeffrey Epstein," Giuffre said. "I’ve heard he has been, but I haven’t seen him myself so I don’t know.”
After Epstein's second arrest for sex trafficking in 2019, a Clinton spokesperson said the former president had no knowledge of Epstein's crimes and that his travels on Epstein's private jet were tied to the Clinton Foundation's work.
Clinton addressed rumors about his ties to Epstein in a memoir released last year, Citizen, in which he denied traveling to Epstein's island.
“Traveling on Epstein’s plane was not worth the years of questioning afterward,” Clinton wrote in the book.
The Wall Street Journal reported recently that Clinton wrote a warm message to Epstein on his 50th birthday, paying tribute to his "child-like curiosity."
Trump has sued the newspaper over its separate report that he wrote his own letter that contained a nude drawing of a woman.
His past ties to Epstein have come under intense scrutiny from the media and the Democratic party as the White House faces backlash over its refusal to release the Epstein files.
The Justice Department officially ruled in July that a hypothetical "client list" does not exist, that Epstein died by suicide in his prison cell, and that no evidence exists to charge additional third parties. The findings angered many Trump supporters who have long believed Epstein had hidden accomplices who abused underage girls.
