Virginia Giuffre’s family is speaking out after President Donald Trump invoked her name and story in a recent attempt to distance himself from convicted sex offender Jeffrey Epstein. In televised comments, Trump claimed Epstein had “stolen” young women from Mar-a-Lago—an apparent reference to Giuffre, who has long said she was recruited by Ghislaine Maxwell while working at Trump’s Palm Beach resort as a teenager.
The language left her family stunned.
“We were shocked by it,” a family member said in an interview. “Especially [the use of] the term ‘stolen.’ Because she’s not an object. She’s a person.”
Virginia Giuffre, whose testimony has been central to public understanding of Epstein’s abuse network, was just 16 when she says she was recruited under the guise of massage work and trafficked to Epstein and his associates. She has since become one of the most prominent survivor voices in the fight for justice. Her family, in the wake of Trump’s remarks, is calling for clarity and accountability—not just from Epstein’s circle, but from the powerful institutions that enabled it.
Trump’s claim that Epstein “took” employees from Mar-a-Lago raised more questions than it answered. As commentators noted, Giuffre is the only person on record who says she was recruited from the club. If there were others—as Trump now suggests—who were they? Did he know about it? Why did he wait years to bring it up?
That’s what makes it so confusing. His story keeps shifting.
Trump’s attempts to paint himself as a bystander—or worse, a victim—have left many critics outraged. In the same breath he described Epstein as “a creep,” he framed the recruitment of teenage girls from his own resort as something done to him.
For Giuffre’s family, that framing is both deeply personal and deeply offensive. “She was looking forward to having fun that summer,” one said. And now we have to ask, how much did he know?
The episode also underscores the way Trump and his allies have exploited Epstein’s crimes to fuel conspiracy theories—often under the guise of demanding transparency. Figures in MAGA circles have used Epstein’s name to bolster wild QAnon-linked claims of elite pedophile rings, even as Trump’s own ties to Epstein remain poorly explained.
“This was never about the survivors,” said MSNBC legal analyst Mary McCord. “For years, all the focus has been on who to expose—not who was harmed.”
Virginia Giuffre died earlier this year, but her family says her fight for justice isn’t over. “She wanted everything to come out,” her sister-in-law Amanda Roberts said. “I think she wants what we all want is transparency and justice.”
As Epstein’s legacy continues to haunt the public sphere, the women he abused—and the girls he exploited—deserve more than political talking points. They deserve answers. And they deserve empathy.
