In 2006, Palm Beach police were investigating the disgraced financier for the alleged sexual exploitation of underage girls. The case was later turned over to federal prosecutors, who in 2008 made a controversial plea deal with Epstein that included a non-prosecution agreement that protected him from more serious charges.
In a statement to the BBC, a justice department official said: “We are not aware of any corroborating evidence that the president contacted law enforcement 20 years ago.”
At the White House briefing on Tuesday, Press Secretary Karoline Leavitt was asked about the reported call and said it “may or may not have happened in 2006. I don’t know the answer.”
“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 in this call. If it did happen it corroborates exactly what President Trump has said from the beginning.”
The BBC has also contacted Reiter for comment.
Trump and Epstein socialised and appeared in photographs together in the 1990s, but the president and the White House have repeatedly said he was in the dark about Epstein’s crimes before he broke off contact with him in around 2004 – years before he was first arrested.
Trump has said their falling out came after he learned Epstein had been trying to “steal” his employees from Mar-a-Lago.
“When I heard about it, I told him, we don’t want you taking our people,” Trump said in July. “He was fine and then not too long after that he did it again and I said ‘outta here’.”
Reports of the alleged call came after Maxwell – who is serving a 20-year prison sentence for recruiting teenage girls to be sexually abused by Epstein – testified virtually before the US House Oversight Committee on Monday.
During the closed-door deposition, Maxwell refused to answer questions and pleaded the Fifth Amendment, invoking her right to remain silent, Oversight Committee chairman James Comer said.
Maxwell’s lawyer claimed she was “prepared to speak fully and honestly if granted clemency by President Trump”.
Trump has said he has not thought about giving a pardon to Maxwell.
