23-07-2025
Epstein attended Trump's 1993 wedding, new photos reveal
Jeffrey Epstein attended Donald Trump's 1993 New York wedding, it has been revealed, as their past relationship faces renewed scrutiny.
Previously unseen black and white photos, published by CNN, have confirmed Epstein's attendance at the US president's wedding to second wife Marla Marples, an American TV personality and model.
In one photo, the disgraced financier is seen walking through the Plaza Hotel. Another shows him grinning in the background of a group photo featuring wedding guests Alison Stern, Robin Leach, Cecilia Nord and Howard Stern.
In a separate image, also from 1993, Epstein is seen standing with Mr Trump and his two children, Eric and Ivanka Trump, at the opening of the Harley Davidson Cafe in New York.
Footage also shows Mr Trump and Epstein, who died in federal custody in 2019, laughing and chatting together before a 1999 Victoria's Secret lingerie fashion show in New York.
The new images and footage were captured before Epstein's wrongdoing came to light.
Their release comes as the US president scrambles to distance himself from Epstein – whose relationship dates back to the 1980s – claiming he is facing a 'witch hunt' amid mounting pressure for him to order the release of secret Epstein files.
In a brief call with CNN on Tuesday, Mr Trump, asked about the wedding photos, responded, 'You've got to be kidding me,' before repeatedly calling the news network 'fake news' and hanging up the phone.
Steven Cheung, the White House communications director, called the photos 'nothing more than out-of-context frame grabs of innocuous videos and pictures of widely attended events to disgustingly infer something nefarious'.
He added: 'The fact is that the president kicked him out of his club for being a creep. This is nothing more than a continuation of the fake news stories concocted by the Democrats and the liberal media.'
The comments followed a recent decision by the US Justice Department (DoJ) not to release secret files related to the deceased sex trafficker, days after The Wall Street Journal reported that Mr Trump sent Epstein a salacious birthday greeting in 2003 in which he expressed close friendship.
In what is shaping up to be the biggest crisis of his presidency, Mr Trump's refusal to release all the information the US government holds on the case has stirred up furious backlash among even some of his most loyal supporters in the Maga movement.
Republican Marjorie Taylor Greene, a key Trump ally who has condemned the White House over this issue, said 'the call volume on Epstein' to her offices 'has almost been 100 per cent.'
Meanwhile, JD Vance, Mr Trump's vice-president, is reported to be boasting that he knows the contents of the Epstein files to dinner guests.
During an appearance on a podcast, comedian Tim Dillon said he had dinner with Mr Vance 'last week' and claimed that the vice-president spoke about the case.
Mr Dillon said: '[Attorney General Pam] Bondi said we have 10,000 hours of video. I had dinner last week with the vice-president. He [JD Vance] told me that that was commercial pornography, they do not have videos of any powerful person in a compromising position. That's the party line that they're going with?'
'If that's the case, why would Pam Bondi call it evidence? She's not an idiot,' Mr Dillon added.
'She's the attorney general. Why would she say she has files on her desk if none of these implicated anybody?'
Mr Trump sought to deflect the heat by baselessly accusing former president Barack Obama of 'treason' for his alleged attempts to undermine Mr Trump's first election victory.
'The witch hunt you should be talking about is that they caught President [Barack] Obama absolutely cold,' he said. 'Whether it's right or wrong, it's time to go after people'.
In a rare retort from the former president, a spokesman for Mr Obama called Trump's attack a 'weak attempt at distraction'.
Top Justice Department officials have also contacted lawyers representing Ghislaine Maxwell, a longtime associate of Epstein, to address lingering questions about the case.
It is not clear how the Justice Department would release any information about an interview with Maxwell, 63, who is serving a 20-year sentence in federal prison after she was convicted of sex trafficking and other crimes in 2022.
Mr Trump's relationship with Maxwell stretches back decades. He was pictured with Maxwell and her paedophile financier boyfriend at his Mar-a-Lago resort in 2000, before any wrongdoing was revealed.
In 2020, while Maxwell was awaiting trial on federal sex crimes for her role in Epstein's sex trafficking crimes, Mr Trump said he wished her 'well'.
Responding to the DoJ's efforts to interview Maxwell, Mr Trump said: 'Yeah, I don't know about it, but I think it's something that would be.. sounds appropriate to do.
He continued: 'I don't really follow that too much.'
The FBI and the DoJ recently concluded that Epstein did not have a 'client list' and died by suicide in a Manhattan prison cell in 2019.
Conspiracy theorists, including many Trump voters, believe that Epstein was killed to prevent supposed information about high-profile 'clients' involved with the financier being made public.
