WSJ claims Trump’s name appears in Epstein files
Source: News Nation
The Trump administration has slammed “another fake news story” after The Wall Street Journal reported the US President’s name is in the Epstein files.
In its latest report, the newspaper on Thursday (AEST) said Donald Trump was told in May that his name appeared multiple times in the documents.
“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,” the Wall Street Journal reports.
The Journal cited senior administration officials.
The article says Bondi and her deputy Todd Blanche told Trump in a meeting at the White House in May that his name was among many high-profile names in the papers.
“The meeting set the stage for the high-profile review to come to an end,” the WSJ reports.
White House communications director Steven Cheung blasted the claims.
“This is another fake news story, just like the previous story by The Wall Street Journal,” he said.
Trump has previously denied being told his name was in the files.
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Trump last week sued the Journal and its owners, including Rupert Murdoch, after it reported that he sent Jeffrey Epstein a birthday greeting in 2003 that included a sexually suggestive drawing and a reference to secrets they shared.
The latest report states that Trump was told the Epstein files contained what US Justice Department officials felt was “unverified hearsay about many people, including Trump, who had socialised with Epstein in the past”.
“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 WSJ reports.
“Trump said at the meeting he would defer to the justice department’s decision to not release any further files.”
Judge rules on Epstein files
Meanwhile, a federal judge has on Thursday (AEST) denied the Trump administration’s request to unseal jury transcripts from the Epstein trial in its bid to take the heat off the President.
Blanche made the request last Friday, US time, saying “transparency to the American public is of the utmost importance to this administration”.
However, Judge Robin L. Rosenberg denied the request in Florida, saying the court’s “hands are tied”.
Rosenberg said the government had not requested the grand jury’s findings to use in a judicial proceeding, according to The New York Times.
She said district courts were generally prohibited from unsealing grand jury testimony except in narrow circumstances.
The Trump administration’s request to release the files came as it sought to contain the firestorm over its decision to not release files from the Epstein probe, despite previously promising it would.
Trump faces increased scrutiny about his relationship with Epstein, the disgraced financier and sex offender who died by suicide in a New York jail cell in 2019.
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The Epstein case generated conspiracy theories that became popular among Trump’s base of supporters, who believe the government is covering up Epstein’s ties to the rich and powerful.
Some of Trump’s most loyal followers became furious after his administration reversed course on its promise to release files related to the Epstein investigation.
However, former prosecutors say the transcripts are unlikely to reveal much, if anything, that is not already known about the financier’s crimes.
Attorney Sarah Krissoff, an assistant US attorney in Manhattan from 2008 to 2021, called the request in the prosecutions of Epstein and imprisoned British socialite Ghislaine Maxwell “a distraction”.
“The President is trying to present himself as if he’s doing something here and it really is nothing,” Krissoff told The Associated Press.
Epstein killed himself at age 66 in his federal jail cell in 2019, a month after his arrest on sex-trafficking charges. Maxwell, 63, is serving a 20-year prison sentence imposed after her 2021 sex-trafficking conviction for luring girls to be sexually abused by Epstein.
Krissoff and Joshua Naftalis, a Manhattan federal prosecutor for 11 years before entering private practice in 2023, said grand jury presentations were purposely brief.
Naftalis said prosecutors presented just enough to a grand jury to get an indictment but “it’s not going to be everything the FBI and investigators have figured out about Maxwell and Epstein”.
“People want the entire file from however long. That’s just not what this is,” he said, estimating that the transcripts, at most, probably amount to a few hundred pages.
“It’s not going to be much,” Krissoff said, estimating the length at as little as 60 pages, “because the Southern District of New York’s practice is to put as little information as possible into the grand jury”.
“They basically spoon-feed the indictment to the grand jury. That’s what we’re going to see,” she said. “I just think it’s not going to be that interesting … I don’t think it’s going to be anything new.”
Both ex-prosecutors said grand jury witnesses in Manhattan were usually federal agents summarising their witness interviews.
Krissoff had predicted that judges who presided over the Epstein and Maxwell cases would reject the government’s request.
“This is not a 50-, 60-, 80-year-old case,” Krissoff said. “There’s still someone in custody.”
-with AAP
