Releasing the files relating to the crimes of accused sex trafficker Jeffrey Epstein was once a key campaign issue for Donald Trump, but now, the United States president is dismissing the documents as “pretty boring stuff” despite years of spreading conspiratorial claims about what they might contain.
“I don’t understand why the Jeffrey Epstein case is of interest to anybody,” Trump told reporters on Wednesday, eight days after the US Justice Department published a memo on the famous saga, effectively denying a string of theories fanned by the Make America Great Again (MAGA) movement.
The memo concluded that there was no “incriminating client list” or evidence that sex offender Epstein had blackmailed high-profile figures.
While facing federal charges of sex trafficking minors, Epstein, a wealthy financier, died by suicide in a New York jail in 2019. He had pleaded not guilty, and the case was dropped after his death.
The department has also rejected claims — promoted heavily by Trump — that Epstein was murdered.
This conclusion has not satisfied many within the MAGA movement, who bought into Trump and his administration repeatedly using Epstein-related conspiracy theories to target their political opponents.
Trump has used these theories to attack former US president Bill Clinton multiple times. In August 2019, immediately after Epstein’s death, he reposted a tweet saying Epstein “had information on Bill Clinton and now he’s dead”.
US attorney general Pam Bondi said in May that the FBI was reviewing “tens of thousands of videos” of Epstein, “with children or child porn”.
He later apologised, saying he “went too far” about the US president.
With the release of the memo saying there is ‘nothing to see’, figures such as commentator Tucker Carlson, right-wing activist Laura Loomer, former Trump adviser Steve Bannon, and popular US podcaster Joe Rogan have argued that the government’s response to the case demonstrates a lack of transparency.
Trump, however, has blamed Democrats for what he called “the Jeffrey Epstein Hoax”, saying some of his past supporters “have bought into this bullshit”.
“Let these weaklings continue forward and do the Democrats’ work … Because I don’t want their support anymore,” he wrote on a post on his Truth Social platform on Thursday.
It is known that Trump and Epstein socialised together. What do we know about the Trump-Epstein relationship?
‘Known Jeff’ for decades
Trump’s past relationship with Epstein is no secret.
In February, documents released by the US Justice Department showed that Trump is named in flight logs of Jeffrey Epstein’s private plane in the 1990s.
Videos published by the NBC archives also show the two partying at Trump’s Mar-a-lago estate in Palm Beach, Florida.
The Washington Post has reported, according to friends and associates, that for 20 years, from the 1980s to the 2000s, the two swam in the same social pool, jetted to Palm Beach, Florida, together, and partied at Mar-a-Lago.
In 2002, in an interview with New York magazine, Trump said that he had known “Jeff for 15 years”, calling him a “terrific guy”.
“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,” he said.
“No doubt about it — Jeffrey enjoys his social life.”
(Left to right) Donald Trump and his girlfriend (and future wife), Melania Knauss, Jeffrey Epstein, and British socialite Ghislaine Maxwell, who was jailed in 2022 over sex trafficking and other offences in connection to Epstein, at Trump’s Mar-a-Lago club, Palm Beach, Florida, on 12 February 2000. Source: Getty / Davidoff Studios Photography
George Houraney, a businessman from Florida, told the New York Times in 2019 that he organised for 28 girls to fly in for a “calendar girl” contest hosted by Trump, with Epstein being the only other guest present.
“I said: ‘Donald, this is supposed to be a party with VIPs. You’re telling me it’s you and Epstein?'” he said.
Separate photos from 1997 and 2000 show Epstein visiting Trump’s Mar-a-Lago Club in Palm Beach and posing in photos there with Trump.
However, in 2016, Trump Organisation attorney Alan Garten told Fox News that Trump had no relationship with Epstein.
“They were not friends and they did not socialise together,” he said.
Banned from Trump property
It appears that in 2004, the Trump-Epstein relationship came to a head.
The two men competed to buy an oceanfront property in Palm Beach, with Trump outbidding Epstein that year — after that, there are few public records of their interaction.
About a year later, Florida police started an investigation into Epstein about sex trafficking.
Garten has said that in reaction to the charges, Trump “banned him [Epstein] from stepping foot on the property”.
In a press conference in 2019, when asked if he had banned Epstein from Mar-a-Lago, Trump said: “Yes. And I did have a falling out a long time ago. The reason doesn’t make any difference, frankly.”
“But I haven’t spoken to him in probably 15 years or more. I wasn’t a big fan of Jeffrey Epstein, that I can tell you.
“It shows you one thing: that I have good taste. OK? Now, other people they went all over with him. They went to his island. They went all over the place.”
