Justice Department holding 100,000 pages of secret Epstein files
ChatGPT said:
The White House is pushing back against a report from The Wall Street Journal claiming that President Donald Trump was informed in May that his name appeared among hundreds listed in Department of Justice documents tied to the late financier and convicted sex offender Jeffrey Epstein.
According to the Journal, Attorney General Pam Bondi notified Trump of his inclusion during a routine briefing, and the report emphasized that being mentioned in the files does not suggest any wrongdoing on Trump’s part.
In response, a White House spokesperson dismissed the story outright, calling it “fake news.”
Trump, who was once publicly friendly with Epstein before claiming to have cut ties in 2004, has come under growing pressure to release more information related to the case. As a presidential candidate, Trump had vowed to make the Epstein files public. However, some of his supporters have since expressed frustration with the administration’s approach—particularly over the unfulfilled expectation of a “client list.”
Earlier this month, both the Justice Department and FBI issued a memo asserting there is no such client list and stating that their review did not uncover evidence warranting further criminal charges.
Epstein, who was awaiting trial on federal sex trafficking charges, died by suicide in a New York jail cell in 2019. His prior conviction involved soliciting sex from a minor, and the secrecy surrounding his death has fueled years of public suspicion and conspiracy theories.
On Wednesday, a federal judge in Florida rejected the Justice Department’s request to unseal older court records related to Epstein’s earlier prosecution. That same day, a subcommittee in the House of Representatives voted to subpoena the DOJ for Epstein-related documents. The subpoena still requires formal issuance by the Oversight Committee chair.
In its report, the Wall Street Journal said Bondi told Trump that the documents contained secondhand accounts involving various public figures, including Trump himself. This detail appears to contradict Trump’s recent comments—when asked if Bondi informed him that his name was mentioned, he said “no, no,” adding that she had only given him a brief overview.
Bondi reportedly also advised Trump that the records include sensitive material, such as child pornography and private information about victims, which the administration has cited as justification for not releasing more files.
Trump has not been accused of any criminal conduct in connection to the Epstein investigation, and simply being named in the files is not evidence of illegal activity.
Following the Journal's reporting, other U.S. media outlets published similar accounts, though none have been independently confirmed by the BBC.
Trump campaign spokesperson Steven Cheung reiterated the administration’s rejection of the report, saying it was “just another fake news smear, pushed by Democrats and the liberal press—like the Russia hoax all over again.”