Is this the Real Reason Trump Doesn't Want to Release the Epstein Files? [View all]

There may be more to it than child sex trafficking

Julie Roginsky

With Donald Trump, it all comes back to real estate — or in this case, the ironically named “Maison de l’Amitié,” the Palm Beach oceanfront estate that became the catalyst for the collapse of the Trump-Epstein friendship. In 2004, Jeffrey Epstein and Trump both competed to buy the mansion, which was in foreclosure, with Trump outbidding Epstein at a bankruptcy auction and acquiring the property for about $41 million. Four years later, Trump flipped it to Russian billionaire Dmitry Rybolovlev for nearly $100 million — an almost 144% profit.

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Journalist Michael Wolff, who wrote a trilogy of books about Trump’s first term in office (and who claims that Epstein was his secret source for some of them), alleges that Epstein told him Trump was only able to afford Maison de l’Amitié because he was acting as a cutout for someone much richer. Here’s Newsweek:

"Epstein knew that Trump didn't have the money, therefore Epstein's conclusion was that he must be fronting for someone," Wolff said.

"And in fact, in that classic money laundering setup, Trump bought the house for $40 million, bought it through borrowed money, and then the house was put on the market not long afterward and immediately sold for $96 million to one of the oligarchs in the close [Russian President Vladimir] Putin circle."

https://saltypolitics.substack.com/p/is-this-the-real-reason-trump-doesnt