What Jeffrey Epstein Learned from Donald Trump

If the Epstein files are released, the millions of Trump's MAGA supporters screaming for them may learn a valuable lesson: Be careful what you wish for. You may get it.

Bosom buddies: Trump and Jeffrey Epstein were the best of friends for many years and before they had a falling out, Epstein realized he would do well to organize part of his operation the same way Trump Model Management operated.

Lots of people are having a ball watching the MAGA faithful freak out about the Trump Administration’s refusal to release Jeffrey Epstein’s client list. As much fun as that may be, I think most people are not asking the right questions.

Here’s one: What about Epstein’s relationship with Donald Trump? That, among other things, is what I’m interested in. The two men had been the best of friends dating back to the late 1980’s and both men were renowned for their exploits in Manhattan’s dating scene. Famously, according to The New York Times, in 1992, Trump and Epstein held a “calendar girl” party for 28 girls that had been organized by Florida businessman George Houraney who was curious about who among the rich and powerful in New York would be attending. “I said, ‘Who’s coming tonight? I have 28 girls coming.’” Houraney told The Times. “It was him and Epstein. I said, ‘Donald, this is supposed to be a party with V.I.P.s. You’re telling me it’s you and Epstein?’”

But Trump’s fun and games with Epstein came to an end in 2008 when the future president swooped in and outbid his pal to buy L’Amitié, an extravagant seaside mansion in Palm Beach that Epstein had coveted. Soon after buying it for a mere $41 million, Trump flipped it for $95 million to Dmitry Ryboloblev, and Trump’s friendship with Epstein was over. (See That’s Why Friends Are For: Inside Dmitry Rybolovlev’s $95 Million Trump Bailout.)

I explored Trump’s ties to Epstein’s operation in my 2021 book, American Kompromat: How the KGB Cultivated Donald Trump and Related Tales of Sex, Greed, Power and Treachery, and one thing I learned was that one of the key facets of Epstein’s operation was the way it “scouted” and recruited young girls, and that eventually he copied the protocols that Trump had implemented in his own agency, Trump Model Managemtn.

It started around 1998 when Epstein began importing girls from the former Soviet Union in 1988 with the help of a close friend, the late Jean-Luc Brunel. (In 2022, Brunel, who was charged with rape of minors in France, died by suicide by hanging before his trial began.)

For decades, Brunel, who owned MC2 Model Management, had worked at a fairly high level in the Parisian world of modeling and claimed to have launched the careers of Sharon Stone, Christy Turlington, and Jerry Hall, among others.

But under the surface there was a lot of nasty business. Known as “le fantôme” (the ghost), Brunel, was the subject of a 1988 piece that aired on CBS’s 60 Minutes in which several young models accused him of groping them sexually, drugging their drinks, and rape. According to the Daily Beast, CBS reporter Craig Pyes said that Brunel “ranks among the sleaziest people in the fashion industry. We’re talking about a conveyor belt, not a casting couch. Hundreds of girls were not only harassed but molested.”

For every successful supermodel at his agency, there were dozens of attractive young girls—many of them under age—who didn’t get much work but were available to attend parties with rich powerful men who, they thought, might help their careers. Enter Jeffrey Epstein.

As I reported in American Kompromat:

[A]ccording to court documents filed in the US District Court for the Southern District of Florida, Brunel was a key part of the Epstein’s network, which relied heavily on him and MC2, a “modeling” agency whose younger models were allegedly part of the Epstein operation.

In addition to whatever legitimate career Brunel may have had as a “model scout,” he also allegedly hired “scouters” to identify, procure, and transport underage girls, many fifteen years of age and under, hire them to give “massages,” and train them to give sexual pleasure. Virginia Giuffre claimed she was forced to have sex with Brunel as well, and was forced to watch him engage in “sexual acts with dozens of underage girls.”

That’s the way Brunel’s operation worked and that meant Epstein, insofar as he was working with Brunel, had to determine what kind of contractual relationship to have with such “model scouts.” To that end, Epstein looked to others in the modeling industry.

According to a sworn deposition by MC bookkeeper Maritza Vasquez, directives about those contracts came to her “from the office of Jeffrey Epstein” with instructions to be forwarded to Brunel as models for for MC2’s contracts.

Again, as I reported in American Kompromat:

Vasquez further testified that Epstein’s instruction package contained contracts from another modeling agency that had similar relationships with models, with directions that MC2 should base its contracts after another agency’s. Vasquez knew it was run by a famous man, but under oath some five years before he launched his presidential campaign, she momentarily forgot, then remembered his name.

“Jeffrey Epstein…was giving instructions to Jean-Luc [Brunel],” she testified, “saying that he wanted to have the same contracts as, uh—what’s his name, of Donald Trump[an apparent reference to Trump Model Monagement], and that he wanted to have the same kind of benefits for the scouters. So he was giving instruction to Jean-Luc on what to do.”

In other words, according to Vasquez, Epstein wanted to institute the same system of incentives that drove “model scouts” and models at the Trump agency as part of his operation to lure minor children to participate in sexual activity for money. Epstein saw Trump Model Management as a prototype for a crucial part of his own operation.

And why not look to Trump for advice? He was no stranger to the modeling industry. Trump owned the Miss Universe pageant which was closely tied to modeling. All three of his wives—Ivana, Marla, and Melania—had been models. His daughter, Ivanka, had started modeling for Elite when she was fourteen.

Trump Model Management, which he had launched in 1999, had occasionally signed big names such as Jerry Hall, Isabella Rosselini, and Yasmin Le Bon. (It also represented Melania Knauss—now the First Lady.)

But it also allegedly indulged in many of the dubious practices that MC2 did, such as violating immigration laws and illegally employing young foreign girls. Three former Trump models, all foreigners, told Mother Jones that Trump Model Management profited by using foreign models who came to the United States on tourist visas that did not allow them to work here. And two former models said that Trump’s agency suggested they lie on customs forms about where they planned to live.

All of which is especially ironic given Trump’s hard-line immigration policies and his assertions that undocumented immigrants are taking American jobs.

Meanwhile, Trump himself became known for hosting parties in suites at the Plaza Hotel, which he owned at the time, where older rich men were introduced to young women and girls who assumed “they’d get somewhere” by joining the party, as one partygoer, a fashion photographer, told the Daily Beast.

According to the photographer, the girls were as young as fifteen. “[They were] in over their heads, they had no idea, and they ended up in situations,” the photographer added. “There were always dramas because the men threw money and drugs to keep them enticed. It’s based on power and dominating girls who can’t push back and can be discarded.”

Trump himself found it difficult to refrain from making troubling remarks about his attraction to young girls, including his daughter. Once he pointed out a ten-year old girl and joked about dating her in the future. “He would go from room to room,” said the photographer. “It was guys with younger girls, sex, a lot of sex, a lot of cocaine, top-shelf liquor.”

And people wonder why Trump hasn’t released the Epstein files!