Fox News issued an apology on Monday for "mistakenly" cropping President Donald Trump out of a photo with convicted pedophile sex offender Jeffrey Epstein and Ghislaine Maxwell, who is accused of helping Epstein recruit girls he sexually abused.
The photo was aired on Sunday night during an "America's News HQ" segment on Maxwell's arrest and the various civil and criminal cases against Maxwell on Fox News.
The image, which was photographed in 2000 at Trump's Mar-a-Lago resort, included Trump, Epstein, Maxwell, and Melania Trump. However, aside from his hand on Melania's waist, Trump was completely edited out of the picture despite there being enough screen real estate on either side of the photo to accommodate the president.
But if Fox News was trying to save Trump the embarrassment, it should've left Melania out of the picture as well, or it could be that they failed to recognize the First Lady.
Fox News Claims it Was a Mistake
In a statement on Monday, a Fox News spokesperson said that the report on Maxwell "during Fox News Channel's 'America's News HQ' mistakenly eliminated President Donald Trump from a photo alongside then-Melania Knauss, Jeffrey Epstein and Maxwell." "We regret the error," the spokesperson added.
Trump's Relationship with Epstein, Maxwell
Epstein, a New York financier, had a number of political, media and other social connections before his downfall, including President Trump. He killed himself in a prison cell last year as he faced charges of sex trafficking.
Maxwell was arrested by the FBI on Thursday morning in New Hampshire before being transported to the Metropolitan Detention Center in Brooklyn. The British socialite and Epstein confidante was arrested on charges that she conspired with the financier to sexually abuse minors, recruiting girls as young as 14.
The indictment specifically cited the years 1994 to 1997 as those when she "facilitated and contributed to Jeffrey Epstein's abuse of minor girls by, among other things, helping Epstein to recruit, groom and ultimately abuse victims known to Maxwell and Epstein to be under the age of 18."
Trump has distanced himself from Epstein, but photos of the two interacting at several events are still being widely circulated.
Last week, Donald Trump's son, Eric Trump, tweeted a picture of former President Bill Clinton walking his daughter, Chelsea, down the aisle and pictured among the wedding guests was Maxwell. "Birds of a feather" he captioned the now-deleted tweet. However, his plan backfired and he instead received a barrage of replies with images of his father with Epstein and Maxwell. Here are some of the posts:
