A week ago, the Wall Street Journal published Donald Trump’s “letter” to Jeffrey Epstein. It wasn’t really a letter, it was a “bawdy note” written by Trump as a special gift for Epstein’s 50th birthday. Ghislaine Maxwell asked all of Epstein’s closest friends to write notes or make drawings, and Maxwell compiled those notes and drawings into a specially-bound book. A day after the WSJ published the note – which was incriminating as hell, as Trump suggested they shared the same terrible secret – Trump filed a $10 billion lawsuit against the Murdochs and WSJ. The Murdochs didn’t blink. On Wednesday, the WSJ had a new exclusive: Donald Trump’s Attorney General Pam Bondi told Trump that his name appears multiple times in the Epstein files.
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 p—graphy 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.
[From The Wall Street Journal]
I actually wonder what the endgame will be. I’ve seen some bright-eyed optimists suggest that multiple people should be fired, including AG Pam Bondi. The thing is… if Trump goes on a firing spree, I don’t think MAGAville would blink an eye. They’ll cheer him on. They’re still waiting for him to provide some sort of explanation though, which is why Trump keeps jingling his keys at his cult and screaming “Barack Hussein Obama!” So… again, what is the endgame here? At the end of all of this, we’re going to learn that Trump was not only one of Epstein’s clients, but Trump was intimately involved with the procurement of teenagers, right? And then what happens after that?
I, for one, am shocked. https://t.co/mnVwe6YqoX
— Tim Walz (@Tim_Walz) July 23, 2025
Photos courtesy of Backgrid and Getty.
