President Trump claimed he didn’t know Prince Andrew, despite numerous photos of the two together.
Speaking to reporters Tuesday at a NATO press conference in London, the president was asked what he thought about Andrew stepping aside from his royal duties over his ties to now-dead sexual predator Jeffery Epstein.
“I don’t know Prince Andrew, but that’s a tough story, that’s a very tough story,” Trump said.
Despite the claim, Trump has spoken with and spent time with Andrew on multiple occasions, including just months ago.
Photos of Trump and Andrew include one of him strolling the grounds of Buckingham Palace side-by-side with the duke and another of him shaking hands with Queen Elizabeth II as Andrew stands nearby. Those photos were posted onto the duke’s Twitter account.
????On Day 2 of the #USStateVisit, The Duke of York & Prime Minister @TheresaMay welcome President Donald Trump @POTUS to St James’s Palace for a UK/US Senior Business Leaders Group Breakfast Meeting. pic.twitter.com/NfvniwmQKX
— The Duke of York (@TheDukeOfYork) June 4, 2019
Additionally, Trump and first lady Melania Trump were photographed in Florida with Andrew at a party attended by Epstein in 2000.
Donald Trump: “I don’t know Prince Andrew” pic.twitter.com/KAiaVMbU9o
— Edward Hardy (@EdwardTHardy) December 3, 2019
White House press secretary Stephanie Grisham said in a Tuesday statement to the Washington Examiner that even if Trump is seen in photos with the prince, it does not mean he knows him on a personal basis.
“The President takes pictures with people all the time. He doesn’t personally know the thousands of people he’s taken pictures with,” Grisholm said. “That would be impossible.”
The news comes a day after 36-year-old Virginia Roberts Guiffre, who claims to have been sexually abused by Andrew, gave an interview where she described her sexual encounters with him that she said started when she was 17-years old.
In the interview, which was punctuated by tears, Guiffre described her alleged sexual encounters with the prince. She said she felt “ashamed and dirty.”
Andrew has fervently denied the claims against him. The duke said that he doesn’t remember meeting Guiffre and that a picture of them together is fake and has been doctored.
