PALM BEACH: US President Donald Trump said on Monday that people who "innocently met" Jeffrey Epstein in the past risked having their reputations ruined by the release of the investigative files on the convicted sex offender.
Trump, in his first comments since the Justice Department began releasing the files on Friday, also dismissed the furor over Epstein as a distraction from his party's achievements.
"This whole thing with Epstein is a way of trying to deflect from the tremendous success that the Republican Party has," he told reporters at his Mar-a-Lago home.
Former president Bill Clinton featured prominently in the first batch of photos from the Epstein files released by the Justice Department, and Trump was asked for his reaction.
"I like Bill Clinton. I've always gotten along with Bill Clinton. I hate to see photos come out of him," he said.
"There's photos of me, too," Trump noted. "Everybody was friendly with this guy (Epstein)."
Trump said he did not like the release of pictures of Clinton and others, calling it a "terrible thing."
"Bill Clinton’s a big boy; he can handle it," he said.
"But you probably have pictures being exposed of other people that innocently met Jeffrey Epstein years ago, many years ago, and they’re highly respected bankers and lawyers and others."
The Republican president said, "A lot of people are very angry that pictures are being released of other people that really had nothing to do with Epstein.
"But they're in a picture with him because he was at a party, and you ruin a reputation of somebody," he said.
Epstein, a wealthy and well-connected financier, died in a New York jail cell in 2019 while awaiting trial on sex-trafficking charges in what was ruled a suicide.
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