trump called police on epstein
Trump did reportedly call the Palm Beach police chief about Jeffrey Epstein in the mid‑2000s, but the details are more nuanced than the headline “Trump called police on Epstein” suggests.
Quick Scoop: Did Trump “call the police on Epstein”?
What actually came out
Recent releases from the Jeffrey Epstein files include an FBI summary of a 2019 interview with former Palm Beach police chief Michael Reiter. In that account, Reiter says Donald Trump phoned the Palm Beach Police Department around 2006, after learning Epstein was under investigation.
According to that FBI report as described by news outlets:
- Trump thanked police and reportedly said, “thank goodness you’re stopping him, everyone has known he’s been doing this.”
- He claimed he had thrown Epstein out of Mar‑a‑Lago.
- He allegedly said people in New York knew Epstein was “disgusting.”
- He described Ghislaine Maxwell as Epstein’s “operative,” calling her “evil” and saying law enforcement should “focus on her.”
- Reiter’s account says Trump was one of the first people to call once it became known that police were investigating Epstein.
So, yes: there is documentation that Trump called the police chief and spoke approvingly of the Epstein investigation, but this is based on Reiter’s recollection as recorded by the FBI, not on audio or a direct transcript.
How solid is this information?
- The story comes from a 4‑page FBI report summarizing Reiter’s 2019 interview, which was released as part of the recent large document dump of Epstein‑related files.
- Multiple major outlets (ABC News, CNN, Forbes and others) have reported the same core quotes and timeline.
- The account is still one witness’s statement recorded years after the fact, so it’s evidence of what Reiter says happened, not proof that every detail is verbatim.
There is, however, no indication in these reports that Trump initiated the Epstein investigation or filed a complaint that started the case; he’s described as calling once the probe was already underway or publicly known.
Politics, spin, and forum chatter
Online forums and social media have picked this up as a fresh angle in the long‑running Trump–Epstein discourse, often turning it into viral lines like “Trump called the cops on Epstein” or, from critics, “he knew and looked the other way.”
You’ll see a few common spins:
- Pro‑Trump framing: He threw Epstein out of his club and cooperated with or encouraged law enforcement, showing distance from Epstein.
- Anti‑Trump framing: If he said “everyone has known” what Epstein was doing, that raises questions about how much he knew and when.
- Mixed view: The call may have been both genuine concern and political self‑protection once Epstein was clearly in trouble.
Because this has resurfaced in the context of massive new document releases, it’s trending again in late 2025 and early 2026 as people re‑litigate Trump’s past ties to Epstein and Maxwell.
So how fair is the headline?
If you say:
“Trump called the police chief in 2006 and thanked him for going after Epstein.”
—that closely matches what’s in the documents and reporting.
If you say:
“Trump single‑handedly called the cops on Epstein and kicked off the investigation.”
—that goes beyond the available evidence and oversells what the records actually show.
Quick TL;DR
- Newly released Epstein‑related files include an FBI summary of ex–Palm Beach police chief Michael Reiter’s 2019 interview.
- Reiter says Trump called him around 2006, praised the Epstein investigation, and called Maxwell “evil.”
- The call appears to have come after the investigation was underway, not as the trigger that started it.
- Headlines like “Trump called police on Epstein” are loosely rooted in this but can be misleading if they imply he initiated the case from scratch.
Information gathered from public forums or data available on the internet and portrayed here.