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Trump-Epstein links: Did late financier visit Mar-a-Lago in 2012 despite ban? Here's the truth
A DOJ-released Epstein email suggests a 2012 Mar-a-Lago invite, raising questions about Trump’s claim he banned Epstein in the mid-2000s.
An email in the newly released Department of Justice's Jeffrey Epstein files has sparked a row for purportedly contradicting a claim President Donald Trump maintains about his links with the disgraced late financier.
Among more than 3 million pages of documents released by the DOJ on the Epstein probe, one email seemed to suggest that an invite was sent to Jeffrey Epstein to visit Mar-a-Lago in 2012. This seemed to contradict Trump's claim that hebanned Jeffrey Epstein from his Palm Beach, Florida estate-cum resort in the mid-2000s when the first federal investigation into Epstein started.
It is unclear who sent the email as the Department of Justice has blacked out the sender's address. It is unclear if the email was sent from Trump or if Epstein actually accepted it and visited Mar-a-Lago.
The email read: "What does JE (Jeffrey Epstein) think of going to Mar-a-Lago after xmas instead of his island?" Records show that the email was sent on September 28, 2012.
Here's the email:
Trump maintains that Epstein never visited Mar-a-Lago after his ban in the mid-2000s. Although there is no official document or memo from Mar-a-Lago that confirms that Jeffrey Epstein was banned from the estate.
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Trump On Epstein's Ban From Mar-a-Lago
Trump has repeatedly said he cut ties with Epstein and barred him from Mar-a-Lago because Epstein “stole” employees. Epstein particularly targeted young women from the club’s spa and hired them for his own purposes, Trump said.
"He stole people that worked for me," Trump said in July 2025. "I said, ‘Don’t ever do that again.’ He did it again, and I threw him out of the place, persona non grata."
The Palm Beach Post reports that Trump and Epstein reportedly lost contact in 2004 after a dispute in which Trump outbid Epstein at a bankruptcy auction for a beachfront estate. Trump has also stated that he "never had the privilege of visiting Epstein's island."
