President Donald Trump signed a bill Wednesday to release the federal government’s Jeffrey Epstein files—an about-face for the president after Republicans defied his attempts to keep the files, and possibly more of his own ties to Epstein, hidden from the public.
Timeline
1980sTrump and Epstein met around the time Trump bought Mar-a-Lago in 1985, when Epstein was also living in Palm Beach, according to Trump, who told New York magazine in 2002 he had known Epstein for “15 years,” calling him a “terrific guy,” and adding “it is even said that he likes beautiful women as much as I do, and many of them are on the younger side.”
1992Trump and Epstein were spotted laughing together at a party Trump threw at Mar-a-Lago, according to NBC footage of the event unearthed in 2019.
1992At a “calendar girl” party at Mar-a-Lago where Trump invited just two other guests, Florida businessman George Houraney and Epstein, Houraney’s girlfriend at the time, Jill Harth, said Trump forcibly kissed and fondled her and restrained her from leaving a bedroom. Harth also said Trump crawled into bed with another 22-year-old woman at the party, according to a 1997 lawsuit Trump settled with Harth (he has denied her allegations), The New York Times reported.
1993Trump flew on Epstein’s private jets four times in 1993, according to flight logs made public during Epstein associate Ghislaine Maxwell’s trial, The New York Times reported.
1993Photos released by CNN showed Epstein attended Trump’s 1993 wedding to Marla Maples—his second wife—at the Plaza Hotel in New York. A few months before the wedding, another photo published by CNN showed Epstein and Trump together at the opening of the Harley Davidson Cafe in New York.
1993Trump groped model Stacey Williams when Epstein brought her to Trump Tower, she alleged in a 2024 interview with The New York Times (Trump’s 2024 campaign denied the allegations as “unequivocally false” and politically motivated).
1994Trump flew on one of Epstein’s private jets, according to the flight logs.
1995Epstein reportedly called Maria Farmer—who has accused Epstein and Maxwell of sexual assault—to his New York office late at night, where Trump then arrived and “started to hover over” Farmer, who was in her mid-20s at the time, and “stared at her bare legs” before Epstein said, “No, no. She’s not here for you,” Farmer told the FBI, according to The New York Times.
1995Trump took another flight on an Epstein jet, the flight logs say.
Donald Trump and Jeffrey Epstein at a Victoria’s Secret Angels event on April 9, 1997.
Thomas Concordia/Getty Images1997Trump signed a note to Epstein in his book, “Trump: The Art of the Comeback,” that said “To Jeff—You are the greatest!” according to The New York Times.
1997Trump took a seventh flight on one of Epstein’s jets.
1997Trump and Epstein were photographed standing near each other at a Victoria’s Secret “Angels” party, according to a Getty image of Trump posing with model Ingrid Seynhaeve that shows Epstein in the background.
1999A video released by CNN showed Trump and Epstein laughing and chatting with each other at another Victoria’s Secret event.
Donald Trump, girlfriend (and future wife), Melania Knauss, Jeffrey Epstein and Ghislaine Maxwell at Mar-a-Lago, Palm Beach, Florida, February 12, 2000.
Getty Images2000Epstein victim Virginia Giuffre was working at Trump’s Mar-a-Lago resort when she was recruited by Maxwell to work as Epstein’s personal masseuse and was groomed by Epstein and Maxwell to provide sexual services for Epstein and his wealthy circle, according to a deposition Giuffre gave that was made public in 2019.
2003Trump allegedly gave Epstein a birthday card that said “may every day be another wonderful secret,” according to a July 2025 Wall Street Journal report, which the president denied and sued the paper over; The New York Times later reported Trump was on a list of contributors for the book of birthday cards that the letter allegedly appeared in.
2004Trump and Epstein had a falling out when Trump outbid him for a Palm Beach mansion, according to a Washington Post report.
Pre-2006Trump and Epstein appeared in a photo with singer James Brown, the Times reported (the photo is undated, but Brown died in 2006).
2010Resurfaced video, posted to social media by the progressive outlet MeidasTouch, showed Epstein confirming he socialized with Trump and declining to answer when asked if he has ever socialized with Trump “in the presence of females under the age of 18.”
2011Epstein told Maxwell in one of the emails released by House Democrats that Trump “spent hours at my house” with an unnamed victim and described Trump as the “dog that hasn’t barked,” noting Trump “has never once been mentioned” in stories about Epstein’s controversies.
2015Trump’s name appeared circled in Epstein’s “little black book” of 1,571 personal contacts, which spanned 97 pages of names, numbers and addresses of Epstein’s associates, including high-powered figures such as Prince Andrew and Ehud Barak, whose names were among about 38 also circled, according to a copy of the document published by Gawker in 2015.
2015Writer Michael Wolff suggested in en email to Epstein he should either expose Trump if he lied in public about his ties to Epstein or “save him, generating a debt” if their relationship came under scrutiny.
2017Epstein told former Treasury Secretary Larry Summers in an email “your world does not understand how dumb [Trump] really is” while discussing how difficult it allegedly was for Trump’s then-lawyer Marc Kasowitz to find law firms willing to work with Trump.
2017Kathy Ruemmler, former White House counsel to President Barack Obama, told Epstein “Trump is so gross,” to which Epstein replied he is “worse in real life and upclose [sic].”
2019Epstein told Wolff in January, “of course [he] knew about the girls as he asked Ghislaine to stop,” suggesting Trump had knowledge of Epstein’s abuse of women, but stopping short of saying he was directly involved. Epstein also said “Trump asked me to resign” from his Mar-a-Lago club, but had “never a member ever.”
2019Epstein and former Trump adviser Steve Bannon discussed Trump’s appearance in the U.K. with Prince Andrew, with Epstein writing that he found it “tooo funny.” Bannon said he couldn’t “believe nobody is making the connective tissue” with Epstein.
Crucial Quote
“I knew him like everybody in Palm Beach knew him,” Trump told reporters from the Oval Office in 2019 when Epstein was arrested. “I was not a fan of his, that I can tell you.”
News Peg
Trump signed a bill Wednesday requiring federal law enforcement agencies to release all unclassified documents related to its investigations into Epstein within 30 days of the bill becoming law. The House and Senate passed the legislation Tuesday. Trump had urged all Republicans to support it, after it was clear it had the GOP support to pass. But for months, the Trump administration has tried to quash the issue, announcing in July it would not release the files voluntarily, contradicting Trump’s promises on the campaign trail. The move angered some of his most influential supporters, marking one of the most significant rifts between the president and his MAGA base of Trump’s political career.
Why Were The Latest Epstein Emails Released?
Democrats on the House Oversight Committee released emails provided by Epstein’s estate in November, hours before Adelita Grijalva, D-Ariz., was sworn in and became the final signature needed on a petition to force a House vote on the release of the federal government’s files into Epstein.
What We Don’t Know
The accuracy of much of what Epstein alleged. He made multiple references in emails to information he claimed to have about Trump that has never been made public. While Epstein wrote in an 2011 email to Maxwell that Giuffre spent “hours” at his house with Trump, Giuffre said in a 2016 deposition she only met Trump “a few times” while working for him at Mar-a-Lago, and never saw Trump and Epstein together. In a series of 2015 emails between Epstein and former New York Times reporter Landon Thomas, Jr., the financier offered the reporter “photso [sic] of donald and girls in bikinis in my kitchen,” though it’s unclear if Epstein actually possessed the photos, and The Times reported Thomas says he never received them. Epstein also suggested Thomas “ask my houseman about donald [sic] almost walking through the door leaving his nose print on the glass as young women were swimming in the pool and he was so focused he walked straight into the door.” In various emails to Wolff, Epstein insulted Trump and proposed a series of what he described as “provocative” questions Trump should be asked. He referred to him as “dopey donald” and “demented donald” in a 2018 email to Wolff, suggesting Trump was engaged in shady business dealings and made false claims about his wealth and assets. “All a sham,” Epstein wrote. In 2018, Epstein wrote, “i am the one able to take him down,” in response to a text from an unidentified acquaintance claiming the media is “really just trying to take down Trump.” Other emails Epstein sent about Trump could be characterized as general observations and innocuous fodder about the president, while some indicate Epstein and his associates were digging for damning information about Trump. In June 2019, for example, Epstein’s accountant, Richard Kahn, told him he had just reviewed Trump’s federal financial disclosure, calling it “100 pages of nonsense,” noting several “interesting findings.” It’s unclear if Epstein responded.
Chief Critic
White House Press Secretary Karoline Leavitt accused House Democrats of “selectively” leaking the emails to the “liberal media to create a fake narrative to smear President Trump.” Trump accused Democrats of “trying to bring up the Jeffrey Epstein Hoax again because they’ll do anything at all to deflect on how badly they’ve done on the Shutdown,” referring to the record-setting federal government shutdown that ended in November after 43 days. Trump has said previously he banned Epstein from Mar-a-Lago because he “hired away” spa workers and “stole” Giuffre.
Portrait of American financier Jeffrey Epstein (left) and real estate developer Donald Trump as they pose together at the Mar-a-Lago estate, Palm Beach, Florida on February 22, 1997. (Photo by Davidoff Studios/Getty Images)
Getty Images
Key Background
Epstein died by suicide in 2019 in his Manhattan jail cell while awaiting trial on federal charges of sex trafficking minors to his wealthy friends and associates. Trump is among a long list of Epstein’s high-profile associates, including billionaire Les Wexner, Prince Andrew and former President Bill Clinton. Many of Trump’s MAGA allies have pushed conspiracy theories about Epstein through the years, including that he was killed, rather than died by suicide, and kept an alleged list of high-profile clients. The Justice Department has said no such list exists and reiterated that Epstein died by suicide.
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