An artist who accused Jeffrey Epstein and Ghislaine Maxwell of sexual assault nearly 30 years ago has called out Donald Trump for “lying” about an alleged incident in the late financier’s office.
Maria Farmer said she was summoned to Epstein’s Manhattan office one night in 1995. At the time she was 25 and the financier had recruited her to acquire art. She ran to the meeting, so was in exercise shorts.
In an interview on CNN’s Erin Burnett Out Front on Monday, Farmer said while waiting for Epstein to come out of his office, she noticed a “tall, imposing” man in the office that she recognized as Donald Trump.
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“He walked up a few feet from me and just stood over me in a very imposing way,” Farmer says of Trump. “And he looked at me like he was in on some secret or something. It was really weird, like smirking. And I felt threatened.”
The artist said she made an “ugly” face, at which point Trump “backed off” and Epstein came out of his office.
She recalled Epstein saying to Trump, “Oh no, she’s not here for you, follow me. Which immediately made me feel weird, was there someone there, in that other room?"
As Trump went into the other room, Farmer said she heard him say under his breath, talking about her, “Oh, I thought she was 16.”
Farmer said, “I thought it was rude, it doesn’t matter what age I was, it was rude.”
Trump has consistently denied being in the so-called Epstein files, telling NBC News last month, “That’s called ‘old news.’ That’s been old news. That has been talked about for years. Even Epstein’s lawyer said I had nothing to do with it—it’s old news.”
Steven Cheung, the White House communications director, slammed Farmer’s story of her meeting with Trump in Epstein’s office.
In a statement to CNN, he said, “The President was never in Epstein’s office, and in fact, the President kicked him out of his club for being a creep.”
Farmer hit back instantly. “He’s lying,” she said. “They’re being disrespectful to the fact I have given up my entire life for this case, just to have it investigated. I’m really sorry for him, that he’s caught... but he’s lying, I don’t appreciate it.”
She continued, “He was absolutely at the offices, it was 9 o’clock at night and I thought it was inappropriate. But also, they were best friends at the time.”
In the CNN interview, Farmer said Epstein joked he had “inherited” Trump after his divorce from Ivana Trump was finalized in 1992.
“He said basically, ‘you’re going to see us together all the time, we’re fixtures because in the divorce I inherited Trump and Ghislaine [Maxwell] inherited Ivana’... It was a known thing among the staff and everyone, that they were best friends. And Epstein bragged about it.”
Farmer and her sister Annie were the first victims to report abuse by Epstein to the NYPD and the FBI in 1996.
Maria Farmer alleged to the FBI that Epstein and Maxwell had sexually assaulted her in 1996, and that the pair had also “committed multiple serious sex crimes” against her and other girls, including Annie, who was 15 at the time.
On May 29, Maria Farmer filed a lawsuit against the federal government, claiming it failed to protect her and other victims of Epstein and Maxwell.
She told CNN she had urged the FBI to look at Trump’s connections to Epstein in both 1996 and 2006, noting, “The government has not held any of the people I’ve reported accountable.”
