Our new book is The Comeback: The 2024 Elections and American Politics. The second Trump administration is off to an ominous start.
REPORTER: Did the attorney general tell you that your name appeared in the Epstein files?
TRUMP: No no. She's given us just a very quick briefing. These files were made up by Comey, Obama, they were made up by the Biden-- we went through years of that with the Russia Russia… pic.twitter.com/Zi5efVzhFA
Sadie Gurman, Annie Linskey, Josh Dawsey and Alex Leary at WSJ:
When Justice Department officials reviewed what Attorney General Pam Bondi called a “truckload” of documents related to Jeffrey Epstein earlier this year, they discovered that Donald Trump’s name appeared multiple times, according to senior administration officials.
In May, Bondi and her deputy informed the president at a meeting in the White House that his name was in the Epstein files, the officials said. Many other high-profile figures were also named, Trump was told. Being mentioned in the records isn’t a sign of wrongdoing.
The officials said it was a routine briefing that covered a number of topics and that Trump’s appearance in the documents wasn’t the focus.
They told the president at the meeting that the files contained what officials felt was unverified hearsay about many people, including Trump, who had socialized with Epstein in the past, some of the officials said. One of the officials familiar with the documents said they contain hundreds of other names.
They also told Trump that senior Justice Department officials didn’t plan to release any more documents related to the investigation of the convicted sex offender because the material contained child pornography and victims’ personal information, the officials said. Trump said at the meeting he would defer to the Justice Department’s decision to not release any further files.
The meeting set the stage for the high-profile review to come to an end. Bondi had said in February that Epstein’s client list was “sitting on my desk right now to review.” Trump said last week in response to a journalist’s question that Bondi hadn’t told him that his name was in the files.
