2 days ago
Unanswered questions about Trump's name in Epstein files
The suspicious suicides of Jeffrey Epstein and his main accuser Virginia Giuffre during Donald Trump's two terms remain unexplained read more
A picture is worth a thousand words—sounds clichéd and stodgy, right?
But what if a 25-year-old photo still triggers suspicions of complicity in sexual assault and orgies involving girls as young as 13-14 and the rich and powerful.
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Donald Trump, his then-girlfriend Melania Knauss, the late paedophile-rapist Jeffrey Epstein and his pimp-girlfriend and British-French-American socialite Ghislaine Maxwell in the same frame.
The picture wasn't taken at Epstein's Little Saint James island, Palm Beach (Florida) mansion, New Mexico home, Manhattan mansion or his Boeing 727 (Lolita Express), where he abused minor girls as part of his widespread sex racket and 'served' them to the crème de la crème of society.
The two couples were photographed at Trump's Mar-a-Lago resort, Palm Beach, on February 12, 2000.
The 45th and the 47th POTUS was seen in several other pics with Epstein and Maxwell, who is serving a 20-year imprisonment for trafficking underage girls for his boyfriend between 1994 and 2004.
That's 'One Big Bizarre Bombshell', especially after Trump's billionaire bosom bud Elon Musk dropped 'the really big bomb' on June 5 after their short yet torrid bromance.
'Time to drop the really big bomb: @realDonaldTrump is in the Epstein files. That is the real reason they have not been made public. Have a nice day, DJT!' the world's richest man and former DOGE boss tweeted after the fallout over Trump's 'disgusting abomination', the One Big Beautiful Bill.
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❗Time for a really big retreat and apology
Tech Billionaire Elon Musk deleted the tweet where he claimed that Trump is in the Epstein files. — Wolf Brief (@wolfbrief_) June 7, 2025
He added, 'Mark this post for the future. The truth will come out.'
However, on June 7, the owner of SpaceX, Tesla and X deleted the tweet. Now, Musk regrets 'some of my posts about' Trump and feels 'they went too far'.
Trump, though 'surprised' and 'disappointed', has also signalled burying the hatchet with Musk.
On New York Post columnist Miranda Devine's podcast 'Pod Force One', the president said that he could reconcile and forgive Musk.
Trump's name in the Epstein files, released in five batches last year upon a court order and the Department of Justice (DoJ) in one batch in February, is neither a secret nor a shocker.
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Musk's allegation was without evidence. However, not all files have been made public, and the ones released/leaked or made public by the DoJ are heavily redacted.
The avalanche of documents, released in January 2024, describing Epstein's chronicle of sexual abuse, contains the names of other affluent, influential and famous people, including politicians and celebs as well.
The other A-listers include Bill Clinton, Prince Andrew, late Stephen Hawking, Noam Chomsky, former CIA director William Burns, famous American criminal lawyer Alan Dershowitz, former Israeli premier Ehud Barak, the late Michael Jackson, former supermodel Naomi Campbell and several others.
The papers released in 2024 stemmed from the hearing of the 2015 civil suit filed by Epstein's victim Virginia Roberts Giuffre.
The documents also contain legal arguments, exhibits and depositions recounting allegations and descriptions of alleged crimes. Giuffre was one of the several minors hired as masseuses and trafficked by Epstein and Maxwell.
What Musk hinted at in his tweet on Trump's name being mentioned in the Epstein files will remain a riddle unless the remaining documents are released unredacted.
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Besides, the mention of a particular name in the files doesn't mean the person was complicit in the sexual depravity.
However, Trump's early association with Epstein and the mysterious deaths of two key figures, including the paedophile, in the sexual saga during his two presidencies raises questions.
Trump's shady association with Epstein
Money, women, power and status—Trump and Epstein bonded for almost two decades, starting in the '80s. The neighbours partied hard at Mar-a-Lago and dined at Epstein's Manhattan mansion.
The upcoming realty tycoon and the wealthy financier often jetted together. According to flight logs, Trump flew on the Lolita Express seven times between 1993 and 1997, especially between Palm Beach and NYC.
Inside Jeffrey Epstein's 'Lolita Express' – the private jet that the billionaire used to 'shuttle underage girls' — Daily Mail US (@Daily_MailUS) July 12, 2019
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'I've known Jeff [Epstein] for 15 years. 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,' Trump told New York Magazine in a 2002 interview.
Cemented by their passion for money and women, the bond seemed unshakable until 2004, when the two playboys turned adversaries over a Palm Beach property called Maison de l'Amitie with Trump outbidding Epstein.
By late 2007, Trump barred Epstein from visiting Mar-a-Lago. In June 2018, he was arrested after pleading guilty to soliciting sex from girls as young as 14.
After Epstein was arrested for the second and final time in July 2019, Trump said in the Oval Office, 'I was not a fan of his, that I can tell you.'
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However, if witnesses are to be believed, what appeared to be a mere bonding between two powerful men had a filthy side.
Giuffre, Epstein's main accuser, was only 16 when she was a spa attendant at Mar-a-Lago in 2000 and was hired by Maxwell for massages. In her lawsuit, she alleged that Epstein raped her at Palm Beach and Manhattan.
In October 2024, former Sports Illustrated model and Epstein's girlfriend Stacey Williams accused Trump of groping her in front of him in a 'twisted game' at Trump Tower in 1993, the year the future president married Marla Maples.
Few days before the 2016 election, a woman mentioned as 'Katie Johnson' and 'Jane Doe' in court filings dropped her third suit accusing Trump of raping her during an orgy at Epstein's Manhattan home in 1994 when she was 13. She also cancelled a press conference at the last minute with her attorney Lisa Bloom saying that 'Johnson' received death threats.
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One of the exhibits unsealed on January 8, 2024, contains explosive emails Epstein's victim Sarah Ransome sent to then-New York Post journalist Maureen Callahan in October 2016. Ransome claimed to have videos of multiple sexual encounters Clinton, Andrew and Virgin Atlantic founder Richard Branson had with her friend.
According to one email, Ransome alleged that Trump had sex with 'many girls', including her friend, at Epstein's mansion. Strangely, Ransome wrote to Callahan in her final email that she wants to 'retract everything I have said to you and walk away from this'.
Epstein's sudden, mysterious death
In August 2017, exactly two months before his mysterious death, Epstein told American journalist and columnist Michael Wolff that he was Trump's 'closest friend' for 10 years.
In a recording obtained exclusively by The Daily Beast, he told Wolff, who was researching his bombshell bestseller Fire and Fury, about Trump's proclivity for sex that included cuckolding his best friends.
Epstein also claimed that 'the first time he [Trump] slept with her [Melania] was on my plane'.
🚨BREAKING: In a new leaked tape, Jeffrey Epstein says he was Donald Trump's 'closest friend' for 10 years.
Epstein also revealed that the first time Donald Trump slept with Melania was on his 'Lolita Express' private — Republicans against Trump (@RpsAgainstTrump) November 3, 2024
It's been widely alleged that Epstein blackmailed several of his clients and friends after 'videorecording' their sexcapades and also threatening to leak their affairs, including that of Microsoft cofounder Bill Gates.
According to Epstein's younger brother Mark, the paedophile had shocking information on Trump and the Clintons that could have disrupted the 2016 presidential election.
'If I said what I know about both candidates, they'd have to cancel the election,' he told Mark in 2016. In his book Ticking Clock: Behind the Scenes at 60 Minutes, former 60 Minutes producer Ira Rosen recounts Maxwell telling him before the 2016 election that Epstein had videotapes of both presidents in compromising positions with women.
It can't be a coincidence that around one month after he was arrested and charged with sex trafficking by federal prosecutors in July 2019, Epstein died under mysterious circumstances in his cell at Manhattan's Metropolitan Correctional Centre (MCC) on August 10, 2019.
Was Epstein eliminated because of his ' Black Book', which contained 1,749 entries of 1,510 people, including around 40 members of royalty and European nobility and 12 high-ranking politicians and diplomats?
Discovered by famous investigative journalist Nick Bryant in 2012, the Black Book was first published by Gawker, a non-mainstream media website/blog, in 2015.
Unsurprisingly, the booklet and the published flight manifest of people on board the Lolita Express didn't get traction with the mainstream media. However, the 'Black Book' was under the media glare with Epstein's arrest in July 2019.
There's a high probability that the influential persons mentioned in the booklet feared being implicated. 'If Epstein talks, there's gonna be a lot of powerful people who could go down,' Bryant told Vanity Fair in July 2019. He wondered why Epstein's house manager 'circled' the names of Trump, Barak and Dershowitz in the booklet.
Within a month of his bail rejection, while prosecutors were building their case, Epstein was found 'hanging' from the lower bunker of his cell with his buttocks 1-1.5 inches above the ground.
How many sheets do they provide a guy on suicide watch? This is Epstein's cell after his body was removed. — Kathy - Just a Patriotic American (@Kathy_Arizona) June 7, 2025
Epstein's death triggered strong suspicions of a homicide with Mark believing he was murdered.
Within a week, a medical examiner termed Epstein's death a suicide with then-attorney general Bill Barr calling the situation a 'perfect storm of screw-ups'. In its 128-page report, the DoJ blamed 'long-standing operational challenges' for his death.
Contrary to instructions, Epstein was left alone without a cellmate and taken off suicide watch despite his highly questionable earlier attempt to 'kill himself'. He was found on his cell floor with neck injuries on July 23. Later, he told his lawyers that his cellmate, former Westchester County cop Nicholas Tartaglione—found guilty of murdering four people in April 2023—tried to kill him.
Then-Manhattan Federal Court Judge Richard Berman wrote to MCC warden Lamine N'Diaye that to his 'knowledge, it has never been definitely explained what the BOP [Bureau of Prisons] concluded about the incident'.
In an interview with journalist Declan Hill on the Crime Waves podcast in December 2023, Mark seriously doubted the suicide angle.
Jeffrey Epstein Files: It was murder.
The evidence indicating that Epstein was killed.
A review of thousands of pages of documents & exclusive interviews by my Investigations students @UNewHaven
CrimeWaves Podcast#Epstein #EpsteinClientListhttps:// — Declan Hill (@declan_hill) January 2, 2024
Why would Epstein commit suicide if his appeal against the bail rejection was to be heard a few days later? He spent most of August 9 (Friday) with his legal team. 'Jeff was looking forward to defending himself against the charges,' he said. In fact, during the last meeting with his lawyers on Friday, Epstein was in 'great spirits', a source told the New York Post.
'Everyday, he was very positive and the night before, he was really positive,' the source said. 'I'll see you Sunday,' he told one of his lawyers. Epstein called someone around 7.40 pm on August 9. The MCC said that it was his mother—but she had died in 2004! Mark claimed to know the person, who was 'equally surprised to know Jeff killed himself'. The New York City pathologist said that it looked more like a homicide with the original certificate stating that the cause of death is 'pending'.
A few days later, however, the chief pathologist, who wasn't present during the actual autopsy, termed it suicide.
As the media devours the Epstein list.
The results of an in-depth investigation by the Investigations Program @UNewHaven into his mysterious death in jail.
Exclusive interviews with his brother, lawyer
and sensational detailshttps:// #EpsteinClientList — Declan Hill (@declan_hill) January 4, 2024
Online pics of other suicide victims show the noose high up on the chin and behind the ears. But the mark on Epstein's neck was 'at the centre of his neck and straight back as if he was strangled with a rope'.
Mark hired famous forensic pathologist Michael Baden, who was present during the four-hour autopsy. He saw something unusual. 'There were fractures of the left, the right thyroid cartilage and the left hyoid bone. I have never seen three fractures like this in a suicidal hanging,' he told CBS News 60 Minutes.
'Going over a thousand jail hangings, suicides in the New York City state prisons over the past 40-50 years, no one had three fractures,' Baden said. Besides, two nooses were found in the cell, but the one included in the autopsy report didn't appear to match the injuries on Epstein's neck. The ligature mark was in the middle of his neck, not beneath the jawbone, as common in a hanging.
'The forensic evidence released so far, including autopsy, point much more to murder and strangulation than the suicide and suicidal hanging,' he added. According to Mark, the fractures resembled injuries caused by a karate chop. 'I found out from Special Forces people that it is how they kill people. In this particular case, as if someone gave him a karate chop and garrotted him.'
Several other questions remain unanswered.
It was a crime scene and the body shouldn't have been touched until the coroner showed up. But Epstein's picture showed him in a hospital gown on a gurney, not the prison dress.
Mark asked the following questions:
Who decided to dress a dead body in a hospital gown?
Why were the PCR and the 911 reports never found?
Why were there no pics of Epstein's body inside the cell?
Why did the camera that could have captured Epstein's cell door and the doors of other inmates on his tier malfunction on the night of August 9 and 10?
Why did the two guards on duty on the second tier fall asleep?
Why were the two unnamed guards present on August 10 not named?
Who are they? Where are they today?
Mark also pointed to the lack of lividity, the bluish-purple skin discolouration after death, on Epstein's legs. He was found hanging at 6.30 am. 'If he was hanging for two hours, he should have had blood at the back of his leg and buttocks. Blood settles in your body due to gravity because it is not being pumped. His legs looked clear.'
Suspicious deaths of Giuffre, Maxwell witness
Giuffre, the primary Epstein accuser who had told a court that he passed her around 'like a platter of fruit' to other men, including Andrew, suddenly died at 41 in Neergabby, Australia, on April 25.
Shockingly, she apparently committed suicide, days after posting that she had 'four days to live'. Sharing her pictures from a hospital bed on Instagram, she wrote that her car was hit by a school bus, her kidneys failed and doctors told her she had 'four days to live'.
However, in a post on X (then Twitter) in 2019, Giuffre had said she wasn't suicidal. 'I am making it publicly known that in no way, shape or form am I suicidal. I have made this known to my therapist and GP—If something happens to me—in the sake of my family do not let this go away and help me to protect them. Too many evil people want to see me [quieted].'
Virginia Giuffre dead by suicide at age 41. There will never be justice will there? @AGPamBondi — Franklin (@FranklinTPotato) April 26, 2025
Giuffre's father, Sky Roberts, suspected that she was murdered. 'And then for them to say that she committed suicide, there's no way that she did. Somebody got to her. She was very strong and had too much to live for.'
Giuffre's lawyer, Karrie Louden, also questioned the suicide and said that there was no proof she would resort to taking her life. 'We've got big question marks over it.
'She was in a lot of pain, but she was looking forward to things in the future. She wanted to renovate the house and all sorts of things like that.'
Another Epstein victim whose court testimony was crucial in Maxwell's 2021 conviction died mysteriously from a reported accidental drug overdose in a West Palm Beach hotel room on May 23, 2023.
Carolyn Adriano, 36, who had struggled with drug abuse after being sexually abused by a relative at four, told the jury during the Maxwell trial that the socialite had groped her and Epstein molested her up to three times a week during massages until she was 18.
Adriano's mother, Dorothy Groener, told The Daily Beast that her daughter 'was ecstatic' before her death. Adriano, a mother of five, and her husband, John Pitts, had purchased a house in North Carolina a few weeks before her death.
'She was all set up for a whole new lifestyle,' Groener said, adding that she had messaged her recently about being free of drugs and alcohol.
Though a toxicology report concluded that Adriano had methadone, fentanyl and alprazolam in her system when she died, Groener claimed that vodka bottles were found in the room, but she didn't have any alcohol in her system.
'Nobody's giving me any answers, and you know what? I'm over it. Because this is my daughter, and she deserves justice. She got to a point where she was turning her whole life around,' said adding that the police investigation 'shouldn't be closed'.
'I begged them; I sent them [the police] numerous messages. I've asked for them to make meetings, contact me, and to no avail.'
The writer is a freelance journalist with more than two decades of experience and comments primarily on foreign affairs. He tweets as @FightTheBigots. Views expressed in the above piece are personal and solely those of the writer. They do not reflect Firstpost's views.
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