Trump says Epstein 'stole' young women from Mar-a-Lago spa, including Virginia Giuffre

WASHINGTON (AP) — President Donald Trump said Tuesday that Jeffrey Epstein “stole” young women who worked for the spa at Mar-a-Lago, the latest evolution in his description of how their highly scrutinized relationship ended years ago.

One of the women, he acknowledged, was Virginia Giuffre, who was among Epstein’s most well-known sex trafficking accusers.

Trump's comments expanded on remarks he had made a day earlier, when he said he had banned Epstein from his private club in Florida two decades ago because his one-time friend “stole people that worked for me.” At the time, he did not make clear who those workers were.

The Republican president has faced an outcry over his administration's refusal to release more records about Epstein after promises of transparency, a rare example of strain within Trump's tightly controlled political coalition. Trump has attempted to tamp down questions about the case, expressing annoyance that people are still talking about it six years after Epstein died by suicide while awaiting trial, even though some of his own allies have promoted conspiracy theories about it.

Ghislaine Maxwell, Epstein’s imprisoned former girlfriend, was recently interviewed inside a Florida courthouse by the Justice Department’s No. 2 official, Deputy Attorney General Todd Blanche, though officials have not publicly disclosed what she said. Her lawyers said Tuesday that she’s willing to answer more questions from Congress if she is granted immunity from future prosecution for her testimony and if lawmakers agree to satisfy other conditions.

Aboard Air Force One while returning from Scotland, Trump said he was upset that Epstein was “taking people who worked for me.” The women, he said, were “taken out of the spa, hired by him — in other words, gone.”

“I said, listen, we don’t want you taking our people,” Trump said. When it happened again, Trump said he banned Epstein from Mar-a-Lago.

Asked if Giuffre was one of the employees poached by Epstein, he demurred but then said “he stole her.”

The White House originally said Trump banned Epstein from Mar-a-Lago because he was acting like a “creep.”

Giuffre died by suicide earlier this year. She claimed that Maxwell spotted her working as a spa attendant at Mar-a-Lago in 2000, when she was a teenager, and hired her as Epstein’s masseuse, which led to sexual abuse.

Although Giuffre’s allegations did not become part of criminal prosecutions against Epstein, she is central to conspiracy theories about the case. She accused Epstein of pressuring her into having sex with powerful men.

Maxwell, who has denied Giuffre’s allegations, is serving a 20-year-prison sentence in a Florida federal prison for conspiring with Epstein to sexually abuse underage girls.

A spokeswoman for the House Oversight Committee, which requested the interview with Maxwell, said the panel would not consider granting the immunity she requested.

The potential interview is part of a frenzied, renewed interest in the Epstein saga following the Justice Department's statement earlier this month that it would not be releasing any additional records from the investigation, an abrupt announcement that stunned online sleuths, conspiracy theorists and elements of Trump's political base who had been hoping to find proof of a government coverup.

Since then, the Trump administration has sought to present itself as promoting transparency, with the department urging courts to unseal grand jury transcripts from the sex-trafficking investigations. A judge in Florida last week rejected the request, though similar requests are pending in New York.

In a letter Tuesday, Maxwell's attorneys said that though their initial instinct was for Maxwell to invoke her Fifth Amendment right against self-incrimination, they are open to having her cooperate provided that lawmakers satisfy their request for immunity and other conditions.

But the Oversight Committee seemed to reject that offer outright.

“The Oversight Committee will respond to Ms. Maxwell’s attorney soon, but it will not consider granting congressional immunity for her testimony," a spokesperson said.

Separately, Maxwell's attorneys have urged the Supreme Court to review her conviction, saying she did not receive a fair trial. They also say that one way she would testify “openly and honestly, in public,” is in the event of a pardon by Trump, who has told reporters that such a move is within his rights but that he has not been not asked to do it.

“She welcomes the opportunity to share the truth and to dispel the many misconceptions and misstatements that have plagued this case from the beginning,” the lawyers said.

President Donald Trump waves as he boards Air Force One, Tuesday, July 29, 2025, at Royal Air Force Lossiemouth en route to return to Washington. (AP Photo/Jacquelyn Martin)

An airplane towing a banner that reads "Trump and Bondi are protecting predators" is seen over the Florida Capitol, Friday, July 25, 2025, in Tallahassee, Fla., as Deputy Attorney General Todd Blanche meets with Ghislaine Maxwell, the imprisoned former girlfriend of financier and convicted sex offender Jeffrey Epstein in the nearby federal courthouse. (AP Photo/Colin Hackley)

David Oscar Markus, an attorney for Ghislaine Maxwell, talks with the media outside the federal courthouse, Friday, July 25, 2025, in Tallahassee, Fla., after Deputy Attorney General Todd Blanche met with Maxwell, the imprisoned former girlfriend of financier and convicted sex offender Jeffrey Epstein. (AP Photo/Colin Hackley)

David Oscar Markus, an attorney for Ghislaine Maxwell, talks with the media outside the federal courthouse, Friday, July 25, 2025, in Tallahassee, Fla., after Deputy Attorney General Todd Blanche met with Maxwell, the imprisoned former girlfriend of financier and convicted sex offender Jeffrey Epstein. (AP Photo/Colin Hackley)

KAMPALA, Uganda (AP) — One figure looms large ahead of Uganda's elections Thursday, although he is not on the ballot: the president's son and military commander, Muhoozi Kainerugaba.

Kainerugaba, long believed to be the eventual successor, stood down for his father, President Yoweri Museveni, who is seeking a seventh term that would bring him closer to five decades in power.

Yet Kainerugaba, a four-star general, remains a key figure in Ugandan politics as the chief enforcer of his father’s rule in this east African country. He is the top military commander, appointed by his father nearly two years ago after Kainerugaba told a political rally he was ready to lead.

Kainerugaba’s appointment as army chief put his political campaign on hold — a least, critics say, for as long as Museveni still wants to stay.

Many Ugandans are now resigned to the prospect of hereditary rule, once vehemently denied by government officials who said claims of a secret “Muhoozi Project” for leadership were false and malicious.

Kainerugaba himself has been honest about his presidential hopes since at least 2023 and openly says he expects to succeed his father.

“I will be President of Uganda after my father,” he said in 2023, writing on social platform X. “Those fighting the truth will be very disappointed.”

The president’s son is more powerful than ever, his allies strategically deployed in command positions across the security services. As the presumed heir to the presidency, he is the recipient of loyalty pledges from candidates seeking minor political offices.

Kainerugaba joined the army in the late 1990s, and his fast rise to the top of the armed forces proved controversial.

In February 2024, a month before Kainerugaba was named army chief, the president officially delegated some of his authority as commander-in-chief to the head of the military.

Exercising authority previously reserved for the president, including promoting army officers of high rank and creating new army departments, Kainerugaba is more powerful than any army chief before him, said Mwambutsya Ndebesa, a political historian at Uganda’s Makerere University, adding that family rule appears inevitable.

“Honestly, I don’t see a way out through constitutional means,” he said.

Elections, he said, “is just wasting time, legitimizing authority but not intended as a democratic goal... Any change from Museveni will be determined by the military high command.”

With Museveni not saying when he would retire, a personality cult around Kainerugaba has emerged. Some Ugandans stage public celebrations of his birthday. Campaign posters of many seeking parliamentary seats often feature the emblem of Kainerugaba’s political group, the Patriotic League of Uganda. Speaker of Parliament Anita Among last year called Kainerugaba “God the Son."

The speaker's comments underscored the political rise of Kainerugaba in a country where the military is the most powerful institution and Museveni has no recognizable successors in the upper ranks of his party, the National Resistance Movement.

Some believe Kainerugaba is poised to take over in the event of a disorderly transition from Museveni, who is 81. One critic, ruminating on Kainerugaba’s military rank, has been urging the son to depose his father.

“I have endlessly appealed to Muhoozi Kainerugaba to, at least, pretend to coup his dad, become the opposition hero, and accuse the old man of all the crimes the general Kampala public accuses him of,” Yusuf Serunkuma, an academic and independent analyst, wrote in the local Observer newspaper last year.

“Sadly, Kainerugaba hasn’t heeded my calls thus far. That he is being pampered by his father to the presidency doesn’t look good at all.”

Kainerugaba’s supporters say he is humble in private and critical of the corruption that has plagued the Museveni government. They also say he offers Uganda the opportunity of a peaceful transfer of political power in a country that has not had one since independence from British colonial rule in 1962.

In addition to opposing family rule, his critics point out that Kainerugaba has behaved badly in recent years as the author of often-offensive tweets.

He has threatened to behead Bobi Wine, a presidential candidate who is the most prominent opposition figure in Uganda. He has said the opposition figure Kizza Besigye, jailed over alleged treason charges, should be hanged "in broad daylight” for allegedly plotting to kill Museveni. And he has appeared to confound even his father, who briefly removed him from his military duties in 2022 when Kainerugaba threatened on X to capture the Kenyan capital of Nairobi in two weeks.

Wine said in a recent interview with The Associated Press that Kainerugaba's army "has largely taken over the election.” Wine said his supporters are the victims of violence, including beatings, perpetrated by soldiers.

In its most recent dispatch ahead of voting, Amnesty International said the security forces were engaging in a “brutal campaign of repression.” It cited one event at a rally by Wine’s party, the National Unity Platform, in eastern Uganda on Nov. 28, when one man died after the military blocked an exit and open fired on the crowd.

It was not possible to get a comment from Kainerugaba, who rarely gives interviews.

Frank Gashumba, a Kainerugaba ally and vice chairman of the Patriotic League of Uganda, said Wine was exaggerating the threat against him. “Nobody is touching him,” he said. “He’s lacking the limelight.”

Only one senior member of the president’s party has publicly pushed back against hereditary rule.

Kahinda Otafiire, a retired major general who is among those who were by Museveni’s side when he first took power by force after a guerrilla war in 1986, has urged Kainerugaba to seek leadership on his own merits rather than as his father’s son.

“If you say so-and-so’s son should take over from the father, his son will also want to take over from his grandfather. Then there will be Sultan No. 1, Sultan No. 2, and then the whole essence of democracy, for which we fought, will be lost," Otafiire, who serves as Uganda's interior minister, told local broadcaster NBS last year.

"Let there be fair competition, including Gen. Muhoozi. Let him prove to Ugandans that he is capable, not as Museveni’s son but as he, Muhoozi, who is competent to manage the country.”

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FILE - Lt. Gen. Muhoozi Kainerugaba, son of Uganda's President Yoweri Museveni, attends a "thanksgiving" ceremony in Entebbe, Uganda, May 7, 2022. (AP Photo/Hajarah Nalwadda, File)