Accuser Maria Farmer’s story shows how US President may appear in Epstein list

Law enforcement agencies have not accused Trump of any wrongdoing related to Epstein, and he has never been identified as a target of any associated investigation. Last week, Trump called for relevant grand jury testimony in the prosecution of Epstein to be made public, and he has repeatedly dismissed any notion that he has something to hide. Even if that testimony is released, it is unlikely to shed much light on the relationship between the two men, which did not figure prominently in Epstein’s criminal cases.

Farmer said she has long wondered how law enforcement agencies handled her complaints in 1996 and 2006.

And she said she has been wondering in particular whether federal authorities did anything with her concerns about Trump.

She said that she raised his name both times, not only because he seemed so close to Epstein but because of an encounter, which she has previously described publicly, that she said she had with Trump in Epstein’s New York office.

‘She’s not here for you’

The encounter with Trump, Farmer said, occurred in 1995 as she was preparing to work for Epstein. She said she told the authorities that late one night, Epstein unexpectedly called her to his offices in a luxury building in Manhattan, and she arrived in running shorts.

Trump then arrived, wearing a business suit, and started to hover over her, she said she told the authorities.

Farmer said she recalled feeling scared as Trump stared at her bare legs. Then Epstein entered the room, and she recalled him saying to Trump: “No, no. She’s not here for you.”

The two men left the room, and Farmer said she could hear Trump commenting that he thought Farmer was 16 years old.

After her encounter with Trump, Farmer said, she had no other alarming interactions with him, and did not see him engage in inappropriate conduct with girls or women.

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The White House on Friday night contested Farmer’s account and cited Trump’s long-ago decision to end his friendship with Epstein.

“The president was never in his office,” White House communications director Steven Cheung said, referring to Epstein. “The fact is that the president kicked him out of his club for being a creep.”

Reports to law enforcement

Farmer, an artist, worked for Epstein in 1995 and 1996, initially to acquire art on his behalf but then later to oversee the comings and goings of girls, young women and celebrities at the front entrance of his Upper East Side townhouse.

In 1996, Farmer said she went to stay at Epstein’s estate in Ohio in a complex developed by Leslie H. Wexner, chief executive of the company that owned Victoria’s Secret. Epstein and Maxwell came that summer.

Farmer said that after she was asked to give Epstein a foot massage, he and Maxwell violently groped her until she fled the room and barricaded herself in another part of the building. Farmer was an artist who did work on nude figures, and she also reported that partially nude photos she had of her two younger sisters were missing from a storage lockbox.

Over the years, Farmer has been attacked by people who questioned whether she could be trusted. She was not called to testify when Maxwell was prosecuted and convicted in 2021 of conspiring with Epstein to sexually exploit and abuse girls. (Her sister Annie did testify in the case about how Maxwell had massaged her bare chest after she had been invited to Epstein’s estate in New Mexico.)

But Farmer’s mother said she remembered hearing about the Trump encounter around the time it occurred in 1996, and that Maria Farmer had first gone to the FBI that year. Annie Farmer also said she remembered Maria sharing that she had told the FBI about Epstein and powerful people like Trump and Clinton.

In her first interviews with The New York Times in 2019, Maria Farmer said that before she spoke to the FBI, she first spoke to the 6th Precinct of the New York Police Department. Police records show that she had done that in August 1996.

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Law enforcement agencies have not released records of any FBI report Farmer made in 1996, but handwritten notes from the interview agents did with her a decade later match her account, including that “6th precinct told MF to call FBI”.

The portions of those FBI records that have been released do not mention Trump, but much of the account remains redacted.

The FBI did not respond to a request for comment.

Unclear follow-up

Epstein was indicted in 2006 and later pleaded guilty to two felony charges, including soliciting a minor, in a deal that avoided federal charges. In 2019, he was charged again, accused of trafficking dozens of girls, some as young as 14, and engaging in sex acts with them. He was later found dead in a jail cell, and officials have said he hanged himself.

It is unclear whether federal investigators pursued a deeper examination of Trump’s relationship with Epstein or whether the authorities documented what Farmer said she told them about Trump.

Trump’s friendship with Epstein has been captured in videos of them partying together and comments the men have made, and his name appears in some previously released case records, including Epstein’s flight logs. Trump was quoted in 2002 as calling Epstein a “terrific guy”. He has since said that he is “not a fan” of Epstein, and has emphasised that he broke with him two decades ago.

In recent years, Trump’s allies have pressed for further release of federal files related to Epstein. But after initially promising full disclosure, US Attorney-General Pam Bondi suddenly backtracked this month, saying a review of the case found nothing to indicate that anyone else should be charged.