Recently, the usual suspects became very excited by what they viewed as an explosive revelation in the Jeffrey Epstein case. The Justice Department, they alleged, had suppressed an account of a woman who told the FBI that when she was 13 or 14 years old, she had been repeatedly raped and abused by Epstein, who arranged for his friend Donald Trump to rape and abuse her, too.
The woman waited 35 years to tell the authorities — until August 2019, the third year of Trump’s presidency, and shortly after Epstein’s highly publicized second arrest, incarceration, and death. Her story focuses on Hilton Head Island, South Carolina, where her mother worked in a small real estate office. The alleged victim claimed that Epstein lived there for a period of time in at least two residences, although she did not know the location. Here is the FBI’s write-up, known as a 302 report, of the Trump allegation:
[The woman] recalled at least one incident in which Epstein took her off of the island [Hilton Head] when she was between 13 to 15 years old. He drove her and/or flew her to either New York or New Jersey. She was “introduced to someone with money, money…It was Donald Trump.” [The woman] and Epstein were with others, to include Trump, in a very tall building with huge rooms. Trump did not like [the woman], “from the get-go he didn’t like that I was a boy-girl,” (referencing a tomboy). [The woman] could not recall the identities of the other individuals present; however, they all exited when Trump asked everyone to leave the room. Trump mentioned something to the effect of, “Let me teach you how little girls are supposed to be.” Trump unzipped his pants and put [the woman’s] head “down to his penis.” [The woman] “bit the shit out of it.” Trump struck [the woman] and said words to the effect of, “Get this little bitch the hell out of here.” [The woman] advised that she bit Trump’s penis because he disgusted her. “He had money; it reeked off of him.”
The account is obviously salacious and sensational. Democrats jumped on the story, alleging that the Justice Department, which released the material above, had tried to cover it up. George Conway, the anti-Trump gadfly who has played a role in sex cases against both Bill Clinton and Donald Trump, went so far as to allege that Trump went to war in Iran to distract the public from the devastating new Epstein accusation.
“Look, it’s just purely a coincidence that Donald Trump started a war just days before the release of FBI 302s of interviews of a victim claiming he raped her when she was 13 years old,” Conway, who is now running for the House, wrote a few days ago.
There’s a problem with all this. There is nothing in the woman’s story in the FBI documents that supports her allegation against Trump. Nothing. For that matter, there is nothing that establishes any sort of link with Jeffrey Epstein, either.
First, there is the issue of Hilton Head Island. A lot is known about Jeffrey Epstein, and there has been no mention of him living on Hilton Head Island for any period of time. The Guardian reported that, “Mark Epstein, Jeffrey Epstein’s brother, told the Guardian that he had no knowledge of his brother spending summers on Hilton Head in the early 1980s. ‘I would have known,’ he said in a phone call.”
Then there is the timing. The woman said the alleged Trump encounter happened when she was between 13 and 15 years old. That would be somewhere in the 1983–1985 time range. Virtually every account of the Trump-Epstein friendship places its beginning in the late 1980s. In 2002, before the troubles, Trump said he had known Epstein for 15 years, which would have been since 1987. Early accounts of them being together at the same events date back to the end of the 1980s and into the early 1990s.
Then there are the other figures in the woman’s story. An alleged Epstein associate, whom the woman called “Jim Atkins,” played a large role in her story. She said that Epstein had explicit photographs of her and then tried to use them to blackmail her mother. That, according to the FBI report, “resulted in her mother embezzling from her real estate company to pay [Epstein]. [The woman] stated that her mother ‘tried to buy back the photos and secrets over the years,’” and that “a man named Jim Atkins, a friend/associate of Epstein…participated with Epstein in blackmailing [the woman’s] mother.” The woman said that “Jim Atkins” was involved with a university in Ohio, and said that he abused her.
“Jim Atkins” is a new name in the Epstein saga, even to people who have kept up with the story. A few days ago, the Miami Herald’s Julie Brown, who has done more than any other journalist to push the Epstein story into the news, wrote, “The woman could not name any of the other men Epstein trafficked her to, except for a man she identified as ‘Jim Atkins,’ whom she believed worked for an Ohio university. The Miami Herald could not locate him on deadline.”
Finally, there is the woman herself. By all accounts, she has led a troubled life. She had drinking and drug problems, and her mother went to prison. “After her time with Epstein, the alleged victim accumulated a record of criminal charges, drug dependency, and domestic turmoil,” the Charleston Post and Courier reported. “She had a daughter and was prosecuted for filing false claims for food stamp applications. [She] avoided prison by completing a drug diversion program.”
The Post and Courier said the woman had three husbands and at least one violent domestic incident. She ended up living with family members in Georgia, “developing a romantic relationship with a terminally-ill man who was saving money for his funeral,” the outlets reported. “She stole an envelope filled with cash from him and spent a year in the county jail for it. Her public defender told the Post and Courier that she described her life to him as having been permanently scarred by her experience with Epstein.”
The short version of the tale is this: There is every reason for reasonable people, that is, those outside the company of anti-Trump fanatics, to be very cautious with this story.