'The most important documents are missing', Ro Khanna says
“The most important documents are missing,” Ro Khanna, the Democratic representative who co-authored the Epstein Files Transparency Act with Thomas Massie, a Republican, told CNN on Friday night.
“What we found out is the most important documents are missing,” Khanna said. “They’ve had excessive redactions, and the central question that Americans want to know – who are the other rich and powerful men on the island, raping these young girls or covering up – has not been answered.”
Khanna confirmed that the release does not appear to include either of the two documents the survivors of Epstein’s abuse told lawmakers they want to see: a 60-count federal indictment outlining charges against Epstein that was drawn up by a federal prosecutor in Florida in 2007, and a detailed memorandum summarizing the evidence she had assembled in support of the charges.
Two months after those charges were drawn up, the US attorney in Florida, Alex Acosta, instead offered Epstein an extraordinary deal: that he would not be prosecuted on federal charges if he agreed to plead guilty to lesser state charges, serve a minimum of two years’ incarceration, register as a sex offender and make some financial amends.
Acosta went on to serve as Donald Trump’s first secretary of labor, from 2017 to 2019, until a new federal investigation into Epstein prompted his resignation.
Exactly why Acosta offered Epstein that deal has never been fully explained, and was criticized in a scathing 2020 review by the justice department’s office of professional responsibility, which found that Acosta’s office “improperly resolved a federal investigation into the criminal conduct of Jeffrey Epstein by negotiating and executing a federal non-prosecution agreement”.
Khanna told CNN that “Thomas Massie and I explicitly drafted” the law “to cover those two documents”.
After Khanna’s appearance, Massie shared video of the interview, with the comment: “Attorney General Pam Bondi is withholding specific documents that the law required her to release by today.”
Updated
In a snapshot of an Epstein bookcase, a reminder of his friendship with Trump
Although there appears to be nothing that incriminates the president in the documents released on Friday from the federal investigations into Jeffrey Epstein, the late sex offender whom Donald Trump socialized with for more than 15 years, one seemingly innocuous snapshot of a bookcase does include a reminder that the two men were once close.
The photograph of an ornate bookcase, apparently from one of Epstein’s properties, shows a copy of one of Trump’s books, Trump: The Art of the Comeback, partially hidden behind what looks like a Ming vase.
In July, the New York Times reported that Trump had inscribed Epstein’s copy of that book with the handwritten note: “To Jeff – You are the greatest!”
The message, photographed by the Times, was signed “Donald” and dated “Oct ’97”, the month the book was published.
Another book in the case, on a shelf at the upper right, is a less flattering appraisal of the other president Epstein was friendly with: Bill Clinton. That book is High Crimes and Misdemeanors: The Case Against Bill Clinton, an anti-Clinton screed by the rightwing author Ann Coulter.
Updated
Pam Bondi could be convicted of obstruction of justice over partial release of redacted files, Massie says
Thomas Massie, the Kentucky Republican who co-authored the Epstein Files Transparency Act, wrote on social media that the attorney general, Pam Bondi, could be convicted by a future justice department of obstruction of justice if she violated a provision of the law by redacting the names of government officials.
Massie was responding to a Fox News report that the names of more than a dozen “politically exposed people and government officials” had been redacted in the hundreds of thousands of pages from the investigation into the late sex offender that were released on Friday.
Massie noted that the law explicitly states that no documents may be “withheld, delayed, or redacted on the basis of embarrassment, reputational harm, or political sensitivity, including to any government official”.
According to Fox News, however, the justice department redacted the names and identifiers of victims and “the same redaction standards were applied to politically exposed individuals and government officials”.
After the Fox report stirred complaints from Massie and others, the deputy tttorney general, Todd Blanche, called the outlet to insist that the justice department is “not redacting the names of any politicians.”
Updated
'This is far from over,' AOC says, calling partial release of Epstein files a 'coverup'
Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez, the Democratic representative from New York, accused the Trump administration of a coverup following that partial release of heavily redacted documents from federal investigations into Jeffrey Epstein, the late sex offender who socialized with Donald Trump for more than a decade.
“Now the coverup is out in the open,” AOC wrote on social media. “This is far from over. Everyone involved will have to answer for this. Pam Bondi, Kash Patel, whole admin. Protecting a bunch of rapists and pedophiles because they have money, power, and connections. Bondi should resign tonight.”
Updated
Documents include civil complaint from Epstein victim who said she was introduced to Trump
Among the references to Donald Trump in the documents released on Friday is one in a lawsuit filed against Epstein’s estate in 2020 by a woman who alleged that she had been recruited by Jeffrey Epstein and Ghislaine Maxwell at a summer camp in Michigan in 1994 when she was 13.
The lawsuit alleged that the girl, known in court records as Jane Doe, was introduced to Trump by Epstein later that year, when she was 14. According to the complaint:
During one of Doe’s encounters with Epstein, he took her to Mar-a-Lago where he introduced her to its owner, Donald J Trump. Introducing 14-year-old Doe to Donald J Trump, Epstein elbowed Trump playfully asking him, referring to Doe: “This is a good one, right?” Trump smiled and nodded in agreement. They both chuckled and Doe felt uncomfortable, but, at the time, was too young to understand why.
The case reportedly ended in a settlement with Epstein’s estate.
In 2021, the same victim testified at Maxwell’s trial and said that she had been a contestant in the 1998 Miss Teen USA beauty pageant, which was then owned by Trump.
In 2016, five contestants in the 1997 edition of the Miss Teen USA pageant told BuzzFeed News that Trump had entered the contestants’ dressing room while they were changing.
Updated
Epstein survivor Annie Farmer outraged by 'how many people were harmed' after FBI failed to act on her sister's 1996 complaint about Epstein
In an interview with CNN on Friday, Annie Farmer, who was abused by Jeffrey Epstein at the age of 16, got emotional when describing her feelings at finally seeing, among the documents released on Friday, the original 1996 FBI report documenting her sister Maria’s first attempt to report Epstein to the authorities.
The newly released FBI document, which we reported on earlier, “described Epstein stealing photos of myself, at the age of 16, and my younger sister, who was 12 at the time”, Farmer said.
“And just to see it in writing and to know that they had this document this entire time,” Farmer said, overcome by emotion, “and how many people were harmed after that date, it just, you know we’ve been saying it over and over, but to see it in black and white that way, has been very emotional.”
“I’m with Maria today,” she continued. “I know she felt a tremendous amount of relief and redemption but also sorrow, in thinking about people like Virginia Roberts Giuffre, who are not here to see this,” referring to one of Epstein’s most prominent accusers, who died this year.
Giuffre said in a legal complaint that she was hired away from Donald Trump’s Mar-a-Lago spa by Epstein’s accomplice Ghislaine Maxwell in 2000, when she was 16. Giuffre also alleged in her complaint that she was first abused by Epstein and Maxwell together, and then “lent out to other powerful men”, including the former Prince Andrew.
“I still have the questions about, did they not take it seriously,” Farmer said about the FBI, “or were they protecting Epstein because of whatever relationship he had with the government. There’s just so many questions and why we hope for more transparency.”
Annie Farmer played a prominent role in campaigning for the full release of the investigative files on Epstein and appeared in a public service announcement last month with other survivors who held photographs of themselves as young girls at the time they were sexually exploited by Epstein and Maxwell.
Updated
Bill Clinton's spokesperson accuses White House of pointing to former president's Epstein ties to distract from Trump's
The partial release of files from the justice department on Friday includes heavy redactions and scant references to Donald Trump, but many images of Bill Clinton, the former president Trump has claimed, without evidence, was closer to Jeffrey Epstein than him.
Angel Ureña, a spokesperson for Clinton, accused the Trump White House of trying to focus attention on the former president while concealing evidence of the current one’s ties to the late sex offender in a statement posted on social media.
“The White House hasn’t been hiding these files for months only to dump them late on a Friday to protect Bill Clinton. This is about shielding themselves from what comes next, or from what they’ll try and hide forever. So they can release as many grainy 20-plus-year-old photos as they want, but this isn’t about Bill Clinton. Never has, never will be. Even Susie Wiles said Donald Trump was wrong about Bill Clinton,” Ureña said.
“There are two types of people here. The first group knew nothing and cut Epstein off before his crimes came to light. The second group continued relationships with him after. We’re in the first. No amount of stalling by people in the second group will change that. Everyone, especially MAGA, expects answers, not scapegoats,” Ureña added.
In an interview with Vanity Fair published earlier this week, and which Ureña referenced, Trump’s White House chief of staff, Susie Wiles, admitted that “there is no evidence” for the unsourced claim Trump has been making for years: that Clinton visited Epstein’s notorious private island in the Caribbean. Wiles also said that the files she had seen contained no damning evidence about Clinton. “The president was wrong about that,” she said.
Updated
The disappointment was palpable. In February, a group of 15 rightwing influencers visited the White House and paraded binders labelled “The Epstein Files: Phase 1”, only to discover that they contained precious little that was new.
Ten months later, it was the world’s turn. Amid huge global anticipation on Friday, the US justice department released hundreds of thousands of pages of documents related to the late financier and convicted sex offender Jeffrey Epstein.
“The Trump administration is the most transparent in history,” proclaimed Abigail Jackson, a White House spokesperson, insisting that it had “done more for the victims [of Epstein] than Democrats ever have”.
But it soon became apparent that, once again, Donald Trump had overpromised and underdelivered. Many of the documents in the data dump were heavily redacted, with text blacked out so it was impossible to read. Norm Eisen, executive chair of Democracy Defenders Fund, said: “What they have released is clearly incomplete and appears to be over-redacted to boot.”
The documents extensively featured photos of former president Bill Clinton, a Democrat, and appeared to include few if any photos of Trump or documents mentioning him, despite Trump and Epstein’s well-publicised friendship in the 1990s and early 2000s.
Moreover, Friday’s release was far from complete. The US deputy attorney general Todd Blanche said “several hundred thousand” documents would be made public on Friday, but that the need to protect victims meant thousands more would be released over the next couple of weeks. The initial release also appeared to include far less than Blanche promised.
Updated
Maria Farmer's lawyer points to 1996 FBI report documenting her complaint about Epstein and Maxwell
Jennifer Freeman, a lawyer who represents the Epstein survivor Maria Farmer in her lawsuit against the federal government, just told our colleague Victoria Bekiempis that one new document in the partial release of Epstein files on Friday is this FBI report from 1996, documenting Farmer’s effort to report her abuse by Jeffrey Epstein and Ghislaine Maxwell in 1996.
“What’s new today is finally getting the FBI report of Maria Farmer from 1996 - this is triumph and tragedy for Maria and so many survivors. Maria Farmer reported Jeffrey Epstein and Ghislaine Maxwell’s crimes in 1996. Had the government done their job, and properly investigated Maria’s report, over 1000 victims could have been spared and 30 years of trauma avoided. After several years of asking for her records, the gov[ernment] finally released at least some of them today,” Freeman wrote in an email.
“Maria told me that she is ‘shedding tears of joy for myself but also tears of sorrow for all of the other victims that the FBI failed.’”
The handwritten description of Farmer’s harrowing complaint, dated 3 September 1996, said that she told the FBI in a telephone interview “that she is a professional artist and took pictures of her sisters 12 and 16 [years old] for her own professional art work. Epstein stole the photos and negatives and is believed to have sold the pictures”.
Epstein, the complaint added, requested that a person whose identity is redacted “take pictures of young girls at swimming pools”.
“Epstein is now threatening” a woman whose identity is redacted “that if she tells anyone about the photos he will burn her house down”.
Maria Farmer has previously said that after she was violently groped by both Jeffrey Epstein and Ghislaine Maxwell in 1996, she discovered that partially nude photos she had of her two younger sisters for use in her work as a painter went missing.
Updated
Ro Khanna says this 'document dump does not comply with' law to compel full release of Epstein files
“The justice department’s document dump this afternoon does not comply with Thomas Massie and my Epstein Transparency Act,” Ro Khanna, the California Democratic congressman who co-wrote the law requiring full disclosure of all of the government’s investigative files on Jeffrey Epstein by Friday, said in a video statement posted on social media.
By way of example, Khanna noted: “They released one document from a New York grand jury of a 119 pages totally blacked out! This despite a New York judge ordering them to release that document, and our law requires them to explain redactions. There’s not a single explanation for why that entire document was redacted.”
“We have not seen the draft indictment,” Khanna added, “that implicates other rich and powerful men who were on Epstein’s rape island, who either watched the abuse of young girls or participated in the abuse of young girls.”
“It is an incomplete release, with too many redactions. Thomas Massie and I are exploring all options,” Khanna said, including the impeachment of justice department officials, finding them in contempt of Congress, “or referring for prosecution those who are obstructing justice.”
Thomas Massie, the Kentucky Republican congressman who co-wrote the legislation, shared Khanna’s video statement on social media, with the comment that the document release by Pam Bondi, the attorney general, and Todd Blanche, the deputy attorney general who previously served as Donald Trump’s personal lawyer, “grossly fails to comply with both the spirit and the letter of the law” that Trump signed, “just 30 days ago”.
Updated
Andrew Mountbatten-Windsor pictured in new files
Another photo shows Andrew Mountbatten-Windsor, formerly known as Prince Andrew, lying across five people whose faces are redacted. The only other identifiable person is Ghislaine Maxwell, who is standing behind them.
Andrew has been under scrutiny for many years over his friendship with Jeffrey Epstein. He has denied all accusations against him. In a statement from October after he was stripped of his royal titles, Andrew said he stood by his decision to step back from public life as the “accusations about me distract from the work of His Majesty and the Royal Family”, adding: “With His Majesty’s agreement, we feel I must now go a step further. I will therefore no longer use my title or the honours which have been conferred upon me.”
Updated
What had already emerged about Trump's links to Epstein?
Donald Trump and Jeffrey Epstein were friends for 15 years, with Epstein at one point believing himself to be Trump’s “closest friend”.
“I’ve known Jeff for 15 years. Terrific guy,” Trump told New York magazine in 2002. “He’s a lot of fun to be with. It is even said that he likes beautiful women as much as I do, and many of them are on the younger side.”
The relationship eventually broke down, with the men falling out over a bidding war on a property in Florida. After Epstein was convicted of child sex offences in Florida in 2008, Trump distanced himself from the financier, claiming he was “not a fan”.
The most recent explanation of the relationship breakdown from Trump is that the friendship ended because Epstein repeatedly “stole” employees from the spa at his Mar-a-Lago club in Palm Beach, which Trump deemed an “inappropriate” tactic. He has suggested one of the employees was Epstein’s most high-profile accuser, Virginia Giuffre, who died by suicide in April.
Other reports suggest that Trump barred Epstein from Mar-a-Lago after Epstein behaved inappropriately toward a club member’s teenage daughter, according to journalists from the Miami Herald and the Wall Street Journal.
After the president spent the summer batting away questions over his relationship with Epstein, on 8 September a 238-page scrapbook given to Epstein for his 50th birthday was made public by House Democrats.
Featuring letters suggesting the sex offender’s lecherous exploits were an open secret, the book included a message bearing Donald Trump’s signature.
Inside a sketch of a woman’s torso, the message depicts an imagined conversation between Trump and Epstein, concluding:
Happy birthday – and may every day be another wonderful secret.
Trump’s name and distinctive signature appear below.
The White House claimed the signature was not Trump’s, despite it appearing identical to numerous public examples. Trump dismissed the letter as “FAKE”.
(Here is our explainer of who is in the “birthday book” and what they said.)
Then in November, Democrats released three of Epstein’s email exchanges that suggest Trump knew about the disgraced financier’s conduct.
In a message sent to Ghislaine Maxwell on 2 April 2011, Epstein described Trump as “that dog that hasn’t barked”. Epstein wrote that Trump “spent hours at my house” with one of his sex-trafficked victims, and noted that Trump had “never once been mentioned” in connection with his crimes. Maxwell replied: “I have been thinking about that … ”
In a separate message, sent to the journalist Michael Wolff in January 2019, Epstein wrote: “of course [Trump] knew about the girls as he asked Ghislaine to stop.”
The third released email exchange, from December 2015, shows Wolff advising Epstein that if Trump claimed to have not visited Epstein’s house or flown on his plane, “then that gives you a valuable PR and political currency”.
Maxwell, the daughter of the media tycoon Robert Maxwell, was Epstein’s one-time girlfriend and was convicted of sex-trafficking crimes as his accomplice.
Updated
Group photos including Trump seen in latest Epstein file release
We’re very much still combing through all the files, but one image so far has featured Donald Trump. On a desk with many photographs of Epstein and various people including Bill Clinton and Mohammed bin Salman is a photo in which Trump stands with several women and another that has been previously released with Melania Trump, Ghislaine Maxwell and Epstein.
Updated
A quick recap: how did we get here?
Trump and his allies long stoked conspiracy theories around Epstein, and he and vice-president JD Vance promised the release of the files on the campaign trail. Pam Bondi also told Fox News in February that a list of Epstein’s clients was “sitting on my desk ready to review”.
The Department of Justice gave a group of conservative commentators binders labeled “The Epstein Files: Phase 1” later in February. But the files contained little new information, leaving conspiracy theorists disappointed, and prompting Bondi to describe the documents as the “first phase of files”. In a statement, the DoJ said it “remains committed to transparency and intends to release the remaining documents upon review and redaction to protect the identities of Epstein’s victims”.
But in an abrupt U-turn in July, the DoJ walked that back, announcing there was no client list and that it would not be making public any more files related to the sex-trafficking investigation.
The fallout was significant, with the saga dramatically plunging Trump’s Maga base into turmoil and igniting an intense backlash amid accusations of a “cover-up”.
Republican lawmakers moved to block a Democratic effort to force the release of the Epstein files on 14 July. But the next day, House speaker Mike Johnson, a fierce Trump ally, called for the Epstein documents to be released.
“It’s a very delicate subject, but we should put everything out there and let the people decide it,” Johnson told a rightwing podcaster, joining a small but growing number of Republicans demanding the documents be made public. Chip Roy, Thomas Massie and Ralph Norman, Republican members of the House, demanded more information be released.
Trump, meanwhile, dismissed the uproar and went on the attack, calling the issue a “hoax” and railing against those people who wanted to make the documents public. The Epstein files, he said, were “boring” and anyone who cared about them – though many of them are his own supporters – were “bad people”.
As the issue refused to go away, four dissident Republicans in the House, and all Democrats, banded together to force a vote on a bill to release the files, over Johnson’s objections.
The House overwhelmingly approved the bill on 19 November in a 427-1 tally. The Senate agreed to pass the bill, and it was sent to Trump’s desk to be signed into law.
The law required the justice department to release the files within 30 days, though it is permitted to hold back records that identify victims, including images of child sexual abuse, or documents that have been deemed classified.
It also has discretion to withhold records that could prejudice a federal investigation. Trump last month ordered a criminal investigation into Epstein’s links with prominent Democrats, including former president Bill Clinton.
Updated
Ex-Duchess of York Sarah Ferguson seen in photos released by DoJ
Sarah Ferguson, the former Duchess of York, can also be seen sitting on a sofa next to a person whose identity has been shielded, and standing next to a woman in another photo whose face is also redacted.
There is no context provided and there is no suggestion of wrongdoing.
Updated
Mick Jagger and Bill Clinton appear in photos released by DoJ
Another photo shows Ghislaine Maxwell, Mick Jagger, Bill Clinton and others around a table. There is no context given and appearing in these photos is not a suggestion of wrongdoing.
Updated
Schumer decries 'heavily redacted' files as 'just a fraction of the whole body of evidence'
Senate minority leader Chuck Schumer has condemned the justice department for “releasing just a fraction of the whole body of evidence” on Epstein.
“Simply releasing a mountain of blacked out pages violates the spirit of transparency and the letter of the law,” he said in a statement, adding:
The law Congress passed calls for the complete release of the Epstein files so that there can be full transparency. This set of heavily redacted documents released by the Department of Justice today is just a fraction of the whole body of evidence.
Simply releasing a mountain of blacked out pages violates the spirit of transparency and the letter of the law. For example, all 119 pages of one document were completely blacked out. We need answers as to why.
Senate Democrats are working to assess the documents that have been released to determine what actions must be taken to hold the Trump administration accountable. We will pursue every option to make sure the truth comes out.
Updated
Here Jeffrey Epstein is pictured with Peter Mandelson of the UK with a large birthday cake, in a photo that has been published before. Again, there is no context and no suggestion of wrongdoing.
Mandelson was sacked by UK prime minister Keir Starmer as ambassador to the US earlier this year after evidence, including emails and photos, emerged showing his continued association with Epstein. Mandelson has said he never witnessed any “wrongdoing”.
Updated
More files to be released on rolling basis, deputy attorney general says
Deputy attorney general Todd Blanche has said more files will be released by the justice department on a rolling basis.
He said in a post on X that “additional responsive materials will be produced as our review continues, consistent with the law and with protections for victims”.
Updated
Photos: files release includes celebrities pictured with Epstein
Here are some images from the newly released files that feature Michael Jackson, Richard Branson, Bill Clinton, Diana Ross, Chris Tucker and other people whose identities have been shielded.
These images have been released as part of this trove of files without context, and there is no suggestion of wrongdoing related to Epstein’s crimes.
Updated
More than 1,200 victims and their relatives identified, says Blanche
Deputy attorney general Todd Blanche has said that more than 1,200 victims and their families were identified during the review of the documents, according to a letter to Congress obtained by Fox News, and that the justice department had redacted or withheld any materials that could reveal their identities.
In the letter, Blanche said:
This process resulted in over 1,200 names being identified as victims or their relatives. We have redacted reference to such names. In addition to redacting the names of these victims, we have also redacted and are not producing any materials that could result in their identification.
Updated
On initial review, there are a striking number of photos featuring former president Bill Clinton.
The former US president can be seen in a pool with Ghislaine Maxwell in one photo, and in a hot tub with a person whose face is redacted in another.
A reminder that there is no suggestion of wrongdoing and Clinton has previously condemned Epstein and denied knowing anything of his conduct.
Updated
White House says release demonstrates Trump administration's transparency
White House spokesperson Abigail Jackson has this statement on the release, calling the Trump administration “the most transparent in history”:
The Trump Administration is the most transparent in history. By releasing thousands of pages of documents, cooperating with the House Oversight Committee’s subpoena request, and President Trump recently calling for further investigations into Epstein’s Democrat friends, the Trump Administration has done more for the victims than Democrats ever have. And while President Trump is delivering on his promises, Democrats like Hakeem Jeffries and Stacey Plaskett have yet to explain why they were soliciting money and meetings from Epstein after he was a convicted sex offender. The American people deserve answers.
Updated
There are a vast number of photos of Jeffrey Epstein and Ghislaine Maxwell and others on trips in locations including Bali, Indonesia; Morocco; and Saint-Tropez, France.
Our reporters and editors are combing through the files; many of the images are heavily redacted. The Epstein Files Transparency Act requires the redaction of information that identifies potential victims of Epstein or contains child sexual-abuse material. Under the law, the justice department is also permitted to withhold material involved in active investigations.
Updated
The material is sorted into four categories: court records, disclosures the justice department said it made under the Epstein Files Transparency Act; material released in response to freedom of information requests; and the records it released in September to the House oversight committee.
Updated
DoJ says reasonable efforts taken to protect victims
The justice department has included this privacy notice on the website housing the documents, which it calls the “full Epstein library”:
In view of the Congressional deadline, all reasonable efforts have been made to review and redact personal information pertaining to victims, other private individuals, and protect sensitive materials from disclosure. That said, because of the volume of information involved, this website may nevertheless contain information that inadvertently includes non-public personally identifiable information or other sensitive content, to include matters of a sexual nature.
It also carries this warning:
Some of the library’s contents include descriptions of sexual assault. As such, please be advised that certain portions of this library may not be appropriate for all readers.
Updated
The release of the files is broken up into four datasets, which we are now reviewing. You can find them here, here, here and here.
There are almost 4,000 files, totaling 3GB of photos and documents.
Updated
Trump administration begins releasing long-awaited Epstein files
The US justice department has begun releasing the long-awaited “Epstein files”, after months of political wrangling, a popular furor and repeated attempts to deflect scrutiny over Donald Trump’s links to the late sex offender and financier Jeffrey Epstein.
The release comes after deputy attorney general Todd Blanche said that the justice department would release “several hundred thousand documents” from the Epstein files on Friday but hinted that some may be held back – at least temporarily – citing the need to protect victims.
“I expect that we’re going to release more documents over the next couple of weeks,” he added.
House Democrats, led by Robert Garcia and Jamie Raskin, condemned the Trump administration’s delay in releasing all of the Epstein files as a violation of federal law and vowed to pursue legal options.
The scandal has dominated Washington for months, dogging the US president since his return to the White House for a second term, splintering his conservative base and spurring accusations of an attempted “cover-up” from across the political spectrum.
Some of the most sought-after material will pertain to the president’s relationship with Epstein, who killed himself in a Manhattan jail while awaiting trial on federal sex-trafficking charges in 2019. Trump and Epstein were close friends for years before falling out.
Trump is not accused of any wrongdoing. But concerns have been raised about how, why and when his relationship with Epstein broke down, and how much Trump knew about Epstein’s conduct. Trump and his allies have denied that he knew about Epstein’s conduct, and no evidence has suggested that he took part in Epstein’s trafficking operation.
Updated
