A lawsuit President Donald Trump has brought against the Wall Street Journal for an exclusive on the president’s relationship with deceased financier and sex offender Jeffrey Epstein has landed in the court of a federal judge appointed by former President Barack Obama.
That’s just the latest in the Trump-Epstein saga that has been blowing up headlines for weeks after the Department of Justice released an anti-climactic memo on the Epstein case.
Epstein’s career, high-profile friendships and criminal history
Epstein has captured the attention and contempt of the American public since it became widely known that he sexually abused young women for years while enjoying the wealth and status of the world’s elite.
He was a college dropout, who nonetheless achieved a meteoric rise on Wall Street in the 1970s before starting his own firm. His success seemingly gained him entrance into social circles that included some of the most high-profile politicians, world leaders and celebrities like England’s Prince Andrew, former President Bill Clinton and then-New York real estate mogul Donald Trump.
Epstein was convicted of soliciting prostitution and soliciting prostitution with a minor by a Florida court in 2008, but served minimal time in a county jail. Then, in 2019, he was arrested by federal agents under the first Trump administration on new federal sex trafficking charges, but he was found dead in his cell before the start of his trial. His death appeared to be a suicide, but because of the timing and his many connections with powerful and prominent people, there was widespread speculation that he was murdered to prevent incriminating evidence about some of his friends from coming to light.
The Trump administration and the Epstein files
Information about Epstein was released under the former Trump and Biden administrations, but amidst ongoing speculation over a client list’ – an alleged list of names of those for whom Epstein arranged illicit sexual services – Trump indicated during his 2024 campaign that he would likely release more of the relevant files if elected.
U.S. Attorney General Pam Bondi was asked in an interview with Fox News in February if the administration would release Epstein’s alleged client list.
“It’s sitting on my desk right now to review,” Bondi said.
She promised on other occasions that the “full Epstein files” would be released. However, on July 7, the Department of Justice released a memo stating that there was no client list, that Epstein had died by suicide, and its extensive review of his case did not “expose any additional third parties to allegations of illegal wrongdoing.”
Bondi’s statements contradicts the DOJ memo, which have roused suspicions of a cover-up by the administration.
However, one of Epstein’s lawyers and at least one attorney who represented hundreds of Epstein’s victims have said there is no client list, according to the Wall Street Journal and ABC News.
The president’s response
The president has repeatedly denied any nefarious connection to Epstein, though he spoke positively of him in an interview with New York Magazine in 2002 and appeared to be aware of Epstein’s sexual proclivities.
“I’ve known Jeff for fifteen years. Terrific guy. He’s a lot of fun to be with,” Trump said. “It is even said that he likes beautiful women as much as I do, and many of them are on the younger side.”
Trump has also distanced himself from supporters who have been critical of how his administration has handled the investigation, lumping in their criticism with what he has described as other Democratic “scams” to undermine him like the “Russia hoax.” He has questioned why, if there was “ANYTHING” in the Epstein case to smear his reputation or land him in court, Democrats didn’t use it in the past nearly six years or at least while former President Joe Biden was in office.
“[Democrats’] new SCAM is what we will forever call the Jeffrey Epstein Hoax, and my PAST supporters have bought into this ‘bullshit,’ hook, line, and sinker. They haven’t learned their lesson, and probably never will, even after being conned by the Lunatic Left for 8 long years,” Trump wrote on Truth Social.
The president has publicly defended Bondi and directed the DOJ to request the unsealing of grand jury transcripts from Epstein’s federal case. A grand jury does not decide a defendant’s guilt or innocence; it determines whether there is sufficient evidence from the prosecution to formally charge the defendant with a crime through an indictment. Epstein was indicted by a New York grand jury in 2019.
On Friday, Trump sued the Wall Street Journal for libel after the paper published a story about a bawdy birthday letter allegedly from Trump to Epstein. The Journal wrote that the letter was one of many Epstein associate Ghislane Maxwell collected and bound in a book for Epstein’s 50th birthday. The president denies having written the alleged message, prompting the lawsuit.
The case was assigned Monday to federal District Judge Darrin Gayles, an Obama appointee.
