The FBI interviewed a woman four times who accused President Donald Trump of sexually assaulting her when she was a minor in the 1980s, but three of the four interviews are omitted from the Epstein files, according to new revelations made public this week.
Timeline
1980s
Trump 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.”
1989
Trump and Epstein went to Trump’s casino in Atlantic City, New Jersey, accompanied by young women—at least one of whom was underage—according to the hotel and casino’s then-president Jack O’Connell, who said Trump told him, “Yeah, Jeffrey likes them young.”
1992
Trump 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.
1992
Epstein attended Trump’s holiday party at the Plaza Hotel, according to an attendee who told the New York Times she ran into Epstein at the party.
1993
At 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.
1993
Trump 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.
1993
Photos 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.
1993
Trump 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).
1994
Trump flew on one of Epstein’s private jets, according to the flight logs.
1994
Epstein took a 14-year-old girl to visit Trump at Mar-a-Lago, the woman later alleged anonymously in a civil lawsuit, with Epstein asking Trump, “This is a good one, right?”; Trump allegedly “smiled and nodded” in response.
1994
Handwritten notes kept by an Epstein assistant and reported by the Times show Trump was a “regular presence” in Epstein’s life during this time, with notes documenting discussions about Mar-a-Lago parties, calls to Trump, and, in one case, saying to invite Trump to a party only if his ex-wife Ivana Trump declined to attend.
Mid-to-Late 1990s
Epstein and Trump “talked at least three times a week” during this period and Trump met at Epstein’s office at least several times, the financier’s former assistants told the Times, with Epstein’s brother Mark Epstein also saying his brother told him Trump “visited him frequently.”
1995
Epstein 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.
1995
Trump 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 Images
1997
Trump 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.
1997
Trump took a seventh flight on one of Epstein’s jets.
1997
Trump 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.
1999
A 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 Images
2000
Epstein 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.
2001
Epstein was reportedly “annoyed” after Trump called him and told an employee the now-president “was short on cash and wanted a ride on Mr. Epstein’s plane,” the employee told the Times.
2003
Trump 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.
2004
Trump appeared to mention Epstein in a book of business advice, referring to a person as “the mysterious Jeffrey” and writing, “He’s one of the few people I know who can get by on just a first name.”
2004
Trump and Epstein had a falling out when Trump outbid him for a Palm Beach mansion, according to a Washington Post report.
Pre-2006
Trump and Epstein appeared in a photo with singer James Brown, the Times reported (the photo is undated, but Brown died in 2006).
2006
Trump told former Palm Beach Police Chief Michael Reiter, who was investigating Epstein at the time, “thank goodness you’re stopping him, everyone has known he’s been doing this,” adding that “he was around Epstein once when teenagers were present and . . . ‘got the hell out of there,’” according to a 2019 FBI interview with Reiter. Trump also called Maxwell Epstein’s “operative” and said “she is evil and to focus on her.”
2007
Trump’s Mar-a-Lago club claimed Epstein had been banned from the property, with a source telling Page Six that Epstein “would use the spa to try to procure girls” and asked one 18-year-old masseuse to “do things,” adding, “Her father found out about it and went absolutely ape-[bleep].”
2009
Bradley J. Edwards, a lawyer who represented Epstein victims, wrote in his memoir that he spoke with Trump by phone about Epstein in 2009, with Trump describing the financier as a “business acquaintance” and saying he had last seen him at a business meeting at Epstein’s home before sexual abuse allegations against Epstein had become public.
2010
Resurfaced 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.”
2011
Epstein 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.
2011
Maxwell and Epstein discussed whether Trump would respond to allegations against Epstein from a former Mar-a-Lago employee, possibly Giuffre, with Maxwell telling Epstein, “I thought you said not to involve Donald.”
2015
Trump’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.
2015
Writer 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.
2017
Epstein 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.
2017
Kathy 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].”
2017
In an interview with Wolff, Epstein described himself as “Donald’s closest friend for 10 years.”
2019
The FBI interviewed a woman four times between July and October who alleged Trump attempted to force her to perform oral sex when she was a minor in the 1980s, according to multiple reports. She said Epstein introduced her to Trump. Only one of the FBI interviews is included in the Epstein files, and details abuse by Epstein, but not Trump, leading to accusations the White House is engaged in a cover-up.
2019
Epstein 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.”
2019
Epstein 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.
2020
Edwards, the attorney who represented some Epstein victims, claimed in his 2020 memoir that Epstein had told some of his victims that he bailed Trump out of bankruptcy years earlier, according to the Times.
2021
An anonymous victim alleged in an interview with the Justice Department that Maxwell “presented” her to Trump at a party in New York and “made clear” to Trump the victim was “available,” but said “nothing happened” between her and Trump.
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
Multiple outlets reported this week three of four interviews the Justice Department conducted with a Trump accuser in 2019 are missing from the Epstein files. The Justice Department released approximately 3 million documents on Jan. 30, including 2,000 videos and 18,000 photos, related to its investigation into Epstein in order to comply with federal law requiring the documents to be released in their entirety. Under the law Congress passed last year, the documents were required to be released within 30 days of Trump signing it on Dec. 19, but the Justice Department said it was unable to meet the deadline because the documents required heavy redactions of victim information. It said on Jan. 30 it has now made public all the Epstein documents it plans to release, though millions more have been withheld. Trump urged Republicans to support the bill after it was clear the GOP had the support to pass it. The Trump administration had previously tried to quash the issue, however, with the DOJ 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 of Trump’s political career between the president and his MAGA base.
What We Don’t Know
The accuracy of references to Trump in the Epstein files. Trump is among several high-profile men who were named in unverified tips the FBI received that include allegations of sexual abuse by Trump and Epstein. Many of the tips were secondhand and there is no evidence to corroborate them, the FBI notes in emails contained in the files. Epstein made several references to Trump in the files, writing in an 2011 email to Maxwell that Giuffre spent “hours” at his house with Trump, though 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 Critics
Some Democrats in Congress have accused the Justice Department of violating federal law by failing to release the Epstein files in their entirety. Rep. Robert Garcia, D-Calif., the top Democrat on the House Oversight Committee, said the agency has “now made it clear that they intend to withhold roughly 50% of the Epstein files, while claiming to have fully complied with the law.”
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)
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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.