A new batch of files released Tuesday by the U.S. government related to notorious late sex offender Jeffrey Epstein contains numerous references to Donald Trump, including documents detailing flights he took on his then-close friend’s private jet.
The Justice Department quickly issued a statement defending the 79-year-old Republican president.
“Some of these documents contain false and sensational allegations against President Trump that were submitted to the FBI just before the 2020 election,” the Justice Department said on X, without specifying which allegations were false.
“If they had any shred of credibility, they would surely have already been armed against President Trump,” the department said.
Epstein cultivated a wide circle of powerful friends, including Trump, and was alleged to have operated an underage sex trade before his death in prison in 2019.
Trump, who has not been charged with any wrongdoing, fought for months to prevent the release of the massive trove of documents gathered during the years-long investigation into the disgraced financier.
A rebellion in Trump’s Republican Party forced him to sign a law mandating the release of all the documents. The extraordinary move reflected intense political pressure to address what many Americans, including Trump’s own supporters, have long suspected was a cover-up.
A first batch was released last Friday amid fierce criticism that the Justice Department deliberately went slow with the release and excluded any reference to Trump.
The latest batch of documents contains 8,000 files, including hundreds of videos or audio recordings. This includes surveillance footage from August 2019, the month Epstein was found dead in his jail cell — and declared a suicide.
Private jet tours
Trump was friends for years with Epstein, and the two of them were photographed together at parties.
The Republican has given different accounts of how he ended their relationship.
He has said they fell out when Epstein “stole” young women working in the spa at his Florida golf club. He also says he kicked Epstein out of his golf club in Florida for being “a creep.”
But despite Trump’s repeated claims that he was not close to Epstein, there is considerable evidence to the contrary.
The latest documents include a January 2020 memo from New York federal prosecutors investigating Epstein’s partner, Ghislaine Maxell, detailing Trump’s repeated travel on the financier’s private jet.
It says, “records we received yesterday reflect that Donald Trump traveled on Epstein’s private jet many more times than previously reported (or that we were aware of).”
Some of the references to Trump in the documents are impossible to verify, and there are no indications of criminal behavior.
One is in a handwritten letter attributed to Epstein and written from prison to Larry Nassar, the former USA Gymnastics doctor who was jailed for brutally abusing female athletes.
In the letter, Epstein reportedly complained to Nassar that they were imprisoned while “the president shares our love of young, nubile girls. When a young beauty walked by, he loved to ‘grab the dick.'”
On Monday, Trump again said he did not approve the file dumps, saying innocent people would be tainted.
“Everybody was friendly with this guy,” he told reporters.
Delays
Deputy Attorney General Todd Blanche has blamed delays in releasing the files on the need to redact the identities of Epstein’s more than 1,000 victims from the hundreds of thousands of documents and images in the government’s possession.
The co-sponsors of the bill requiring the release of the files — Ro Khanna, a Democrat, and Thomas Massie, a Republican — threatened over the weekend to bring contempt of Congress charges against Attorney General Pam Bondi for failure to comply.
The tranche of materials released on Friday included photographs of former Democratic President Bill Clinton and other famous names, such as pop stars Mick Jagger and Michael Jackson, who were in Epstein’s circle.
Clinton called on the Justice Department to release all material in the files related to the former president, saying he had nothing to hide.
Maxwell, Epstein’s partner and former lover, remains the only person convicted in connection with his crimes.
