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President Donald Trump called the Palm Beach, Florida, Police Department in the mid-2000s to thank them for investigating Jeffrey Epstein while simultaneously warning them to stay focused on “evil” Ghislaine Maxwell, according to an FBI document recapping an interview with the local department’s former chief.
“TRUMP called the PBPD (Palm Beach Police Department) to tell him ‘thank goodness you’re stopping him, everyone has known he’s been doing this,'” reads an FBI document reviewed by Fox News Digital recounting a 2019 interview with former Palm Beach, Florida, Police Chief Michael Reiter.
Reiter served as the police chief in Palm Beach, Florida, from 2001 to 2009. Reiter’s name was redacted from the FBI document released by the Department of Justice, but confirmed to the Miami Herald that he was interviewed by the FBI in 2019 and that Trump called the police department regarding Epstein in July 2006, according to the outlet.
Fox News Digital reached out to Reiter and a security and crisis management firm he operates, called Michael Reiter and Associates, Tuesday morning. Reiter declined to comment on the matter.
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The FBI document was among the millions of files, photos and emails released by the Department of Justice (DOJ) following Trump signing the Epstein Files Transparency Act in late 2025. The DOJ released its latest batch of files on Jan. 30.
The Florida police department began investigating Epstein in 2005 after receiving a call that a 14-year-old girl was allegedly molested by the financier, the Miami Herald reported. The call led to police uncovering other similar sexual abuse allegations and pulled Reiter into the investigation, the outlet wrote Monday.
The FBI document recapping Reiter’s reported interview with federal officials continued that Trump allegedly called Maxwell, Epstein’s longtime associate, “evil” and warned that police should “focus on her.”
“TRUMP told him people in New York knew EPSTEIN was disgusting,” the FBI document continued of the interview with the former police chief. “TRUMP said MAXWELL was EPSTEIN’s operative, ‘she is evil and to focus on her,’ the report continues. “TRUMP told (redacted) that he was around EPSTEIN once when teenagers were present and TRUMP ‘got the hell out of there.’ TRUMP was one of the very first people to call when people found out that they were investigating EPSTEIN.”
Fox News Digital also reached out to the White House and Department of Justice Tuesday morning for comment on the phone call and FBI document and has yet to receive replies.
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Trump long has maintained that while he did at a time brush elbows with Epstein, he “threw him out” of his Mar-a-Lago resort back in the 2000s as details of his web of sex trafficking and pedophilia circulated.
Reiter’s interview with the FBI also backed up Trump’s longstanding comments that he ended any ties to Epstein in the early 2000s.
“Mar-A-Lago is a mixture of everyone,” the FBI document reads. “DONALD TRUMP told (redacted) that he threw EPSTEIN out of his club.”
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Epstein was a well-connected financier with a lengthy Rolodex of billionaires and celebrities who floated in and out of his orbit across the years. He was convicted of sex trafficking minors in 2008 and served just more than one year of incarceration, which also included a controversial work-release arrangement under a plea agreement.
He was arrested again in 2019 on charges of sex trafficking before he was found dead in his Manhattan jail cell by suicide.
Reiter’s interview with the FBI was held just two months after Epstein’s death, according to the Miami Herald.
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Trump signed legislation in November 2025 that required the Justice Department to release files related to the late convicted sex offender, with the DOJ releasing tranches of the documents since December 2025.
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