Fox News crops out Trump but leaves Melania in Jeffrey Epstein photo during segment on Ghislaine Maxwell
Fox News' loyalty does not extend to the first lady. This fact was proven when the right-wing media outlet repeatedly featured one particular infamous photo of disgraced billionaire and convicted sex offender, Jeffrey Epstein during one of their news segments on Sunday, June 5. While they had meticulously cropped out President Donald Trump's presence from the snap, his wife was left in.
Whether it was a deliberate move or simply an oversight, we will never know, but in the photo taken at Trump's Mar-a-Lago club, Palm Beach, Florida, on February 12, 2000, when the FLOTUS was still Melania Knauss, and a former model who was dating a then-real estate developer, Trump, only the latter was cut out by Fox News. As a result, unlike the original picture, which featured four individuals, the one showed by Fox News showed Melania, Epstein, and his confidante and British socialite, Ghislaine Maxwell, who was arrested by the police at the beginning of this month.
The news segment was focused on the charges brought against Maxwell, which announced alongside her arrest last week after she was accused of recruiting and grooming teenage sex victims for Epstein, who was charged with running a sex trafficking ring. There are several pictures of Trump and Melania from the same Mar-a-Lago party that Epstein and Maxwell attended. In one of the pictures, Trump is seen posing solo with Epstein and in another, Melania is seen happily chatting with the financier who died by apparent suicide in a New York jail cell while awaiting his trial last year.
It was unclear as to why Fox News chose to pick out that one particular picture from the lot as there are multiple pictures of Epstein available on the internet as well as social media, including his mugshots.
The original, unedited picture went viral at the time of Epstein's arrest last year. The POTUS came further under fire when a now-infamous New York magazine interview from 2002 surfaced online, where he called Epstein a “fun” and “terrific guy." “It is even said that he likes beautiful women as much as I do, and many of them are on the younger side. No doubt about it — Jeffrey enjoys his social life,” the future president added at the time.
Eric Trump, one of the president's son, was forced to delete a tweet he posted following Maxwell's arrest last week. In the tweet, he shared a picture of former President Bill Clinton walking his daughter Chelsea Clinton down the aisle during her wedding, in which Maxwell was one of the attendees. He captioned the photo, 'Birds of a feather.' As soon as he posted the tweet, the comments section was flooded by pictures of his father and Epstein together at the Mar-a-Lago party.
There were also those who reminded him about a 1997 Donald Trump profile made by the New Yorker, in which then-business mogul Trump was giving Maxwell a ride on his private aircraft, along with other guests. Steven Hoffenberg, a former business associate of Epstein’s told New York Post recently that Maxwell might be prepared to throw many high profile celebrities under the bus in order to protect herself after her arrest.
“She’s going to be naming some big names — not only in terms of those who abused underage girls at Epstein’s parties — but also those who made financial agreements with Epstein or benefited from his generosity, including flying on his plane and staying at his homes," he said.