President Donald J. Trump delivered new insight Thursday into his longstanding decision to ban Jeffrey Epstein from the Mar-a-Lago estate, underscoring once again that he acted decisively when confronted with behavior he found inappropriate.

Speaking at the White House during a press event, President Trump responded to questions about his previous statements concerning Epstein’s efforts to “recruit” young women from Mar-a-Lago during the early 2000s. The president reaffirmed that he personally expelled Epstein from the club after learning of the disgraced financier’s suspicious activity.

“No, I don’t know really why,” Trump said when asked by ABC News about Epstein’s interest in the women at Mar-a-Lago. “But I said, if he’s taken anybody from Mar-a-Lago, he’s hiring or whatever he’s doing, I didn’t like it. And we threw him out.”

That public confirmation backs up reports that President Trump had a falling out with Epstein long before the public exposure of his international sex trafficking ring. The two had reportedly been friendly in the late 1990s but had severed ties well before Epstein’s 2019 arrest.

This week’s comments followed criticism from the family of Virginia Giuffre, one of Epstein’s most widely known accusers, after the president mentioned her in response to a media question regarding Ghislaine Maxwell, Epstein’s longtime associate and now-convicted accomplice.

“I think she worked at the spa. I think so. I think that was one of the people,” President Trump said of Giuffre. “He stole her. You want to know the truth? And by the way, she had no complaints about us, as you know, none whatsoever.”

The Giuffre family responded to those remarks with a public statement accusing Trump of misrepresenting her story. According to ABC News, the family said:

“We would like to clarify that it was convicted sex trafficker Ghislaine Maxwell who targeted and preyed upon our then 16-year-old sister, Virginia, from Mar-a-Lago, where she was working in 2000, several years before Epstein and President Trump had their falling out.”

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The family also pointed to a 2002 quote attributed to Trump from New York Magazine, in which he allegedly said Epstein “likes women on the younger side.” They called on the president to provide answers and pressed the Justice Department for full transparency.

President Trump has consistently denied any wrongdoing or knowledge of Epstein’s criminal behavior. In contrast to the many prominent Democrats and global elites tied to Epstein through flight logs and private events, Trump’s name has notably never appeared on Epstein’s so-called “client list.”

Epstein was arrested in 2019 under President Trump’s administration on federal sex trafficking charges and died under suspicious circumstances in a federal detention facility the following month. The Department of Justice under Attorney General William Barr opened multiple inquiries into the apparent suicide, citing significant irregularities in jail protocols.

Maxwell was later convicted in 2021 and sentenced in 2022 to 20 years for her role in recruiting and abusing underage girls. The DOJ concluded that she “assisted, facilitated, and participated” in Epstein’s crimes between 1994 and 2004.

Virginia Giuffre alleged Maxwell personally abused her and recruited her from Mar-a-Lago when she was 16. Maxwell denied the claims under oath in 2016, saying Giuffre had “lied repeatedly.”

In a notable development, Ghislaine Maxwell recently met twice with Deputy Attorney General Todd Blanche for over nine hours. While details remain classified, the meetings followed a directive from President Trump to Attorney General Pam Bondi to declassify and release all pertinent information regarding Epstein’s network in the name of transparency and justice.

As President Trump continues his second term, he has made it clear that elite protection rackets and institutional cover-ups have no place in the Department of Justice. The American people, he says, deserve the truth.