US Attorney General Pam Bondi told President Donald Trump in May that his name appeared in investigative files related to convicted sex offender Jeffrey Epstein, the Wall Street Journal has reported.
The disclosure about Mr Trump’s appearance in the Justice Department’s case records threatened to deepen a political crisis that has engulfed his administration for weeks.
Some Trump supporters for years have fanned conspiracy theories about Epstein’s clients and the circumstances of his 2019 death in prison.
The White House sent mixed signals following the story. It released an initial statement characterising it as “fake news,” but a White House official later told Reuters the administration was not denying that Mr Trump’s name appears in some files, noting that Mr Trump was already included in a tranche of materials Ms Bondi assembled in February for conservative influencers.
Mr Trump, who was friendly with Epstein in the 1990s and early 2000s, appears multiple times on flight logs for Epstein’s private plane in the 1990s. Mr Trump and several members of his family also appear in an Epstein contact book, alongside hundreds of others.
Much of that material had been publicly released in the criminal case against Epstein’s former associate Ghislaine Maxwell, who was sentenced to 20 years in prison after her conviction for child sex trafficking and other crimes.
During her trial, Epstein’s longtime pilot testified that Mr Trump flew on Epstein’s private plane multiple times. Mr Trump has denied being on the plane.
Jeffrey Epstein died in prison in 2019
Mr Trump has faced intense backlash from his own supporters after his administration said it would not release the files, reversing a campaign promise.
The Justice Department said in a memo earlier this month that there was no basis to continue probing the Epstein case, sparking anger among some prominent Trump supporters who demanded more information about wealthy and powerful people who had interacted with Epstein.
Mr Trump has not been accused of wrongdoing related to Epstein and has said their friendship ended before Epstein’s legal troubles first began two decades ago.
Ms Bondi and Deputy Attorney General Todd Blanche issued a statement that did not directly address the Journal’s report.
“Nothing in the files warranted further investigation or prosecution, and we have filed a motion in court to unseal the underlying grand jury transcripts,” the officials said. “As part of our routine briefing, we made the President aware of the findings.”
The newspaper reported that Ms Bondi and her deputy told Mr Trump at a White House meeting that his name, as well as those of “many other high-profile figures,” appeared in the files.
Epstein died by suicide in 2019 while awaiting trial on sex trafficking charges, to which he had pleaded not guilty. In a separate case, Epstein pleaded guilty in 2008 to a prostitution charge in Florida and received a 13-month sentence.
Under political pressure last week, Mr Trump directed the Justice Department to seek the release of sealed grand jury transcripts related to Epstein.
Yesterday, US District Judge Robin Rosenberg denied one of those requests, finding that it did not fall into any of the exceptions to rules requiring grand jury material be kept secret.
Pam Bondi said the president was made aware of the findings in the files
That motion stemmed from federal investigations into Epstein in 2005 and 2007, according to court documents; the department has also requested the unsealing of transcripts in Manhattan federal court related to later indictments brought against Epstein and Maxwell.
Last week, the Journal reported that Mr Trump had sent Epstein a birthday note in 2003 that ended, “Happy Birthday – and may every day be another wonderful secret.”
Mr Trump has sued the Journal and its owners, including billionaire Rupert Murdoch, asserting that the birthday note was fake.
The president and his advisers have long engaged in conspiracy theories, including about Epstein, that have resonated with Mr Trump’s political base. The Make American Great Again movement’s broad refusal to accept his administration’s argument that those theories are now unfounded is unusual for a politician who is accustomed to enjoying relatively unchallenged loyalty from his supporters.
In a sign of how the issue has divided his fellow Republicans, US House Speaker Mike Johnson on Tuesday abruptly said he would send politicians home for the summer a day early to avoid a floor fight over a vote on the Epstein files.
His decision temporarily stymied a push by Democrats and some Republicans for a vote on a bipartisan resolution that would require the Justice Department to release all Epstein-related documents.
But a subcommittee of the House Oversight Committee yesterday approved a subpoena seeking all Justice Department files on Epstein. Three Republicans joined five Democrats to back the effort, in a sign that Trump’s party was not ready to move on from the issue.
Mr Trump has sought to divert attention to other topics, including unfounded accusations that former president Barack Obama undermined Trump’s successful 2016 presidential campaign.
Mr Obama’s office denounced the allegations as “ridiculous.”
More than two-thirds of Americans believe the Trump administration is hiding information about Epstein’s clients, according to a Reuters/Ipsos poll conducted last week.
