On the flight back from his Scotland sojourn, Trump claimed that Virginia Giuffre—one of Jeffrey Epstein’s victims— was among the women the disgraced financier had “stolen” from the spa at Mar‑a‑Lago. After landing in Washington, Collins asked the president whether the alleged theft “raised alarm bells” for him at the time.

The Jeffrey Epstein morass surrounding President Donald Trump is deepening amid growing defiance by some Republicans and despite the administration’s most inflammatory attempt yet at distraction.