The White House has denied President Donald Trump once met a Jeffrey Epstein accuser in the late convicted sex offender’s offices three decades ago.
“This is recycled, old fake news of the highest order that was already peddled more than 6 years, concocted by Democrats and the liberal media just like they did with the Russiagate scandal, which was just proven today,” White House communications director Steven Cheung told Newsweek on Monday.
“The President was never in his office,” Cheung said, referring to Epstein. “The fact is that the President kicked him out of his club for being a creep.”
Why It Matters
Trump’s ties to Epstein, the disgraced financier and convicted sex offender who died by suicide behind bars while awaiting trial on sex trafficking charges in 2019, have come under fresh scrutiny as his administration faces pressure from some of the president’s own supporters to release the evidence about the investigation into Epstein.
A firestorm followed the Justice Department’s July 6 announcement that it would not release any more evidence about the sex trafficking investigation into Epstein. The department said in a two-page memo that there was no client list of elites who participated in Epstein’s trafficking of underage girls.
Trump had promised to release files related to Epstein while on the campaign trail last year. But the administration’s handling of the case has angered many Trump supporters who believed the files would reveal a cover-up in the case to protect Epstein’s wealthy and powerful friends. The backlash intensified after the Wall Street Journal reported last week on a sexually suggestive note that it said Trump sent Epstein for his 50th birthday. Trump has sued the newspaper and called the article “false, malicious, and defamatory.”
Meanwhile, some Democratic lawmakers are calling for the release of all Epstein files, suggesting that this has not been done to protect powerful or influential individuals.
Trump has said Attorney General Pam Bondi had not told him whether his name was in the Epstein files. He slammed those calling for the government to release more information as “troublemakers” as he requested the Justice Department to release grand jury testimony related to Epstein.
President Donald Trump delivers remarks to Republican senators during a dinner in the State Dining Room of the White House on July 18, 2025, in Washington, DC.
President Donald Trump delivers remarks to Republican senators during a dinner in the State Dining Room of the White House on July 18, 2025, in Washington, DC.
Anna Moneymaker/Getty Images
What To Know
According to the New York Times, Maria Farmer’s account of meeting Trump—which she previously described to the newspaper in 2019—is an indication of how Trump may have been named in the unreleased files related to the Epstein investigation.
She worked for Epstein in 1995 and 1996, initially to acquire art and later to oversee the comings and goings of girls and celebrities at the entrance of his townhouse on Manhattan’s Upper East Side, the newspaper reported.
Farmer told the Times that she reported being sexually assaulted by Epstein and Ghislaine Maxwell, who was convicted on charges she helped Epstein lure girls to be sexually abused, in the summer of 1996.
At the time, she said she had urged authorities to take a look at the people around Epstein, including Trump. She said the same when the FBI interviewed her about Epstein in 2006.
She said she had no evidence of criminal wrongdoing by Epstein’s associates, but mentioned Trump’s name on both occasions because of his apparent closeness to Epstein and the encounter she had with Trump.
Farmer said that Epstein had unexpectedly summoned her to his Manhattan office late one night in 1995. She arrived wearing running shorts.
She said that Trump arrived, stood over her and stared at her bare legs, making her feel afraid. Then Epstein walked in, and she recalled, said to Trump: “No, no. She’s not here for you.”
She said the men left the room, and she overheard Trump saying he thought she was 16. She said she had no further interactions with Trump and did not see him engage in any inappropriate behavior with girls or young women.
What People Are Saying
Trump wrote on Truth Social on Saturday: “I have asked the Justice Department to release all Grand Jury testimony with respect to Jeffrey Epstein, subject only to Court Approval. With that being said, and even if the Court gave its full and unwavering approval, nothing will be good enough for the troublemakers and radical left lunatics making the request. It will always be more, more, more. MAGA!”
Senator Amy Klobuchar, a Democrat, said on CNN‘s State of the Union on Sunday: “People have a reason that they want to know what’s in there. They believe the president when he said there’s stuff in there that people should see. Wall Street Journal. These are not bastions of liberalism or wild progressives that have come out and said the public have a right to know what is in these documents.”
Representative Tim Burchett, a Tennessee Republican who cosponsored the bipartisan Epstein Files Transparency Act, said on ABC‘s The Week on Saturday that unsealing grand jury records is “a start.”
Of the Epstein files, he said: “I want them released. But my warning is this, let’s make sure that we’re not releasing the names of some of these who—who were then children, now adults, that were abused by this dirtbag, Epstein. And let’s make sure we don’t release things that are—that have innocent names on them.”
What’s Next
Deputy Attorney General Todd Blanche requested the unsealing of transcripts from grand jury proceedings that resulted in indictments against Epstein and Maxwell.
But legal analysts—including former prosecutors from both liberal and conservative camps—have cautioned that the public is unlikely to find a “smoking gun” or sweeping narrative implicating a wider circle of powerful figures.
Meanwhile, the Trump administration will likely continue to face calls to release the government’s files on the Epstein case.