Donald Trump Legal and Ethics

A newly released FBI interview memo says Donald Trump called Palm Beach police in July 2006 to praise their Jeffrey Epstein investigation, describe Epstein as 'disgusting,' and urge officers to 'focus on' his associate Ghislaine Maxwell, whom he allegedly labeled 'evil.' The document, summarizing a 2019 FBI interview with then–Palm Beach police chief Michael Reiter, also quotes Trump as saying he had once been around Epstein when teenagers were present and 'got the hell out of there,' and that he later threw Epstein out of his Mar‑a‑Lago club. The memo is part of millions of pages of FBI and DOJ records now being released under the Epstein Files Transparency Act, which Trump signed in late 2025, and provides the most detailed government‑documented account to date of his early 2000s contacts and break with Epstein. Reiter has confirmed to the Miami Herald that he was interviewed by the FBI and that Trump called the department in 2006, though he declined further comment to Fox; the White House and DOJ have not yet responded to questions about the memo. The revelations are feeding renewed public debate over how to interpret Trump’s long‑public claim that he 'threw' Epstein out of Mar‑a‑Lago and what he and other elites knew about Maxwell’s role years before her federal sex‑trafficking conviction.