Editorial Note: The following news reports are summaries from original sources. They may also include corrections of Arabic names and political terminology. Comments are in parentheses.

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Epstein's Relationship with Israel is more revealed, shedding light on his ultimate goal of controlling his clients, November 24, 2025 

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Evangelical Support for Israel Declines Worldwide, Mounting criticism of Israel and growing empathy for Palestinians may signal a larger power shift in the global Evangelical, November 24, 2025.	Trump-Epstein Relationship Timeline, What the Files Reveal, November 24, 2025 Intelligencer
Want to Scroll Through Jeffrey Epstein's Gmail Account, Now You Can, November 24, 2025.	Charlie Kirk’s death is tearing MAGA apart, November 24, 2025.
Tucker Carson says that Epstein worked for Israel.	Tucker Carson confronts Ted Cruze about Israel-First

 

Evangelical Support for Israel Declines Worldwide:

Mounting criticism of Israel and growing empathy for Palestinians may signal a larger power shift in the global Evangelical

By James M. Dorsey

Who What Why, November 24, 2025

Donald Trump’s MAGA movement has long drawn much of its strength from the extensive Evangelical movement, which provided Trump Republicans with a ready-made network throughout much of rural America and voted for Trump partly because of its near Messianic support for Israel.

Lately, that seemingly rock-solid support has begun to fracture. Even more concerning for Trump, mounting criticism of Israel and growing empathy for Palestinians, particularly among American Evangelicals aged 18 to 29, may signal a larger power shift in the global Evangelical community. 

“This train has left the station. It’s not coming back, especially with the younger generation,” said Rep. Marjorie Taylor Greene (R-GA), an Evangelical conspiracy theorist. During the COVID-19 epidemic, Greene compared protective masks to the yellow Star of David that Nazis forced Jews to wear. She later apologized for her comment.

The power shift comes as influential MAGA figures, including podcaster Tucker Carlson, have turned up the volume on criticism of US support for Israel and platformed far-right antisemites such as 27-year-old neo-Nazi, white supremacist, and Christian nationalist Nick Fuentes, and blatantly antisemitic podcaster  Candace Owens.

The shift in American Evangelical attitudes is compounded by the rise to prominence of non-Western Evangelicals, who account for 70 percent of the global Evangelical community. These Evangelicals may share a belief in End Times but do not see that as a reason for supporting Israel.

For many American Evangelicals, the End Times will be marked by Jews once again gathering in the Promised Land, where they will experience persecution similar to the Tribulations. The Evangelicals believe that Jews who survive the persecution and recognize Jesus as their Messiah will be saved.

“Theological emphasis is shifting. We younger Evangelicals interpret the teachings of Jesus as emphasizing compassion, peace, and justice for all, rather than a political alignment with a specific nation,” said a young Evangelical activist.

The global power shift in the Evangelical community was on display last month when the World Evangelical Alliance (WEA), which represents 600 million Evangelicals from 161 countries, elected Sri Lankan activist Godfrey Yogarajah as chairman to replace Thomas Schirrmacher, a religious scholar with close ties to the German political establishment, at its general assembly in Seoul, South Korea.

Yogarajah has not spoken publicly about Israel or the Gaza war but stressed that he would work closely with Botrus Mansour, a Nazareth-born Israeli Palestinian lawyer with a history of mediating between Israeli Palestinian Christians and Messianic Jews.

Mansour was appointed as the Alliance’s secretary general and CEO in August. Assembly attendees said Yogarajah was signaling that the WEA would take a more even-handed approach to the Israeli-Palestinian conflict compared to Schirrmacher’s more pro-Israel slant.

“It means something profound that, in this moment, a Palestinian Christian from Israel has been asked to serve as secretary general,” Mansour said in his inaugural address.

Mansour argued that it was time to “reclaim” the word “Evangelical” and bring it back to its original meaning as “bearers of good news.” “It has been politicized and changed, and people use it in different ways,” he said. 

For several years, Mansour operated a popular website that highlighted Israeli discrimination against Israeli Palestinians, who account for 20 percent of the country’s population. The website invited Evangelicals to visit Israel to establish facts for themselves rather than uncritically accept predominantly American pro-Israel Evangelical assertions.

The website is “aimed at Western Christians, many of whom confuse biblical references to Israel with the modern state by that name, and often think of the Palestinians as a modern extension of the Philistines that Joshua fought in Old Testament times,” said Israeli Palestinian lawyer and human rights activist Jonathan Kuttab.

In a similar vein, the European Baptist Federation (EBF) elected Lebanese Rev. Charles Costa as its new president in September. The EBF comprises associations in Europe, the Middle East, and Central Asia.

At the same time, the Baptist World Alliance, of which the EBF is a member, appointed Jordanian Rev. Nabeeh Abbassi as its first ambassador to the Middle East and North Africa.

Following an Israeli attack on the Baptist Hospital in Gaza early in the Gaza war, Abbassi emphasized Jordanian King Abdullah’s consistent call “for the right of the Palestinian people to establish their independent state with East Jerusalem as its capital, along the entire borders of June 4, 1967,” a reference to the war in which Israel conquered the West Bank, Gaza, and East Jerusalem.

These developments notwithstanding, North American Evangelicals retain considerable influence in Africa, Asia, and Latin America, despite the shift in power in the global movement.

That was evident last year when International Court of Justice (ICJ) Vice President Julia Sebutinde was the only member of the world’s highest judicial body to oppose all provisional measures it advocated in South Africa’s case, accusing Israel of genocide in Gaza.

“The Lord is counting on me to stand on the side of Israel,” Sebutinde said in August at the launch of a new Watoto Church Evangelical ministry in the Ugandan capital of Kampala. It was Sebutinde’s first public comment on her opposition to the ICJ ruling. Watoto Church was founded in 1984 by Zimbabwe-born fourth-generation Canadian missionary Gary Skinner.

The Ugandan government distanced itself from Sebutinde at the time of the ICJ ruling.

“The position taken by Judge Sebutinde is her own individual and independent opinion and does not in any way reflect the position of the government of the Republic of Uganda,” the government said in a statement.

Now it appears that other Evangelicals have been distancing themselves as well.

James M. Dorsey is an Adjunct Senior Fellow at Nanyang Technological University’s S. Rajaratnam School of International Studies, and the author of the syndicated column and podcast, The Turbulent World with James M. Dorsey.

Evangelical Support for Israel Declines Worldwide - WhoWhatWhy

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US Rep. Greene questions Israeli ties to Epstein, says feud with Trump stems from files push

Georgia congresswoman asks if any foreign government pressuring US president to keep documents hidden

Yasin Gungor, November 16, 2025       

ISTANBUL

US Rep. Marjorie Taylor Greene said on Sunday that a foreign government may be pressuring President Donald Trump to keep Jeffrey Epstein files hidden, specifically questioning Israel's potential involvement with the late sex offender.

"I think the question that many Americans are asking" is whether Epstein was working for Israel, Greene told CNN, citing emails released by the House Oversight Committee showing his ties to former Israeli Prime Minister Ehud Barak.

"We saw him making business deals with them, also business deals that involved the Israeli government and seems to have led into their intel agencies," the Georgia Republican said.

Asked if she was accusing Israel of pushing Trump to cover up the files, Greene said she was questioning "any foreign government" but confirmed Israel "in particular."

Greene, a longtime loyalist, has criticized the president and her party's leadership in recent weeks

​​​​​​​Feud with Trump

Greene said her conflict with Trump stems entirely from her push for Epstein file transparency.

"Unfortunately, it has all come down to the Epstein files, and that is shocking," she said, adding Trump's remarks have been "hurtful," particularly calling her a "traitor."

"Those are the types of words used that can radicalize people against me and put my life in danger," Greene said.

"I believe the country deserves transparency in these files," she said.

Greene denied Trump's assertion that she criticized him because he discouraged her from running for Senate or Georgia governor.

"That is absolutely not true. Actually, I never had a conversation at all with the president about running for Senate or running for Georgia," she said, adding she decided independently not to pursue those positions.

Greene said she hopes for reconciliation with Trump. "I certainly hope that we can make up," she said, noting she speaks for her side.

Trump on Friday officially withdrew his endorsement of Greene, calling her "wacky" and a "Republican in name only (RINO)" on social media after she joined a bipartisan petition to compel the Justice Department to release remaining Epstein files.

He said he would support any challenger who wants to take Greene's seat in Georgia in the 2026 midterms.

Trump has dismissed the Epstein files issue as a "hoax" concocted by Democrats, while the White House worked to prevent a House vote demanding full file release.

US Rep. Greene questions Israeli ties to Epstein, says feud with Trump stems from files push

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Epstein & Israel: Drop Site News Investigates Jeffrey Epstein’s Ties to Israeli Intelligence

Democracy Now, November 12, 2025

Guests Murtaza Hussein reporter for Drop Site News.

A new series by Drop Site News looks at Jeffrey Epstein’s ties to Israeli intelligence and how he secretly brokered numerous deals for Israeli intelligence. Drop Site revealed that Epstein had played a role in brokering a security agreement between Israel and Mongolia and setting up a backchannel between Israel and Russia during the Syrian civil war.

Epstein had an “extensive relationship with Israeli intelligence, U.S. intelligence and the intelligence agencies of other countries, as well,” says Murtaza Hussain, reporter for Drop Site News. “He was a dealmaker and a fixer at a very, very elite level.”

Transcript

This is a rush transcript. Copy may not be in its final form.

AMY GOODMAN: This is Democracy Now!, democracynow.org, The War and Peace Report. I’m Amy Goodman.

As the House of Representatives moves closer to forcing the release of the Epstein files by the Department of Justice, we turn now to look at a new series by Drop Site News looking at Epstein’s ties to Israeli intelligence and how he secretly brokered numerous deals for Israeli intelligence.

On Tuesday, Drop Site revealed an Israeli spy stayed for weeks at a time with Epstein in Manhattan. Drop Site has also looked at Epstein’s role brokering a security agreement between Israel and Mongolia and Epstein’s role in setting up a backchannel between Israel and Russia on Syria.

This all comes as CNN has revealed today Epstein mentioned Donald Trump by name multiple times in private correspondence over the last 15 years, according to newly released emails from Democrats in the House Oversight Committee. CNN is reporting the emails show Epstein asserts Trump spent significant time with a woman whom Oversight Democrats describe as a victim of Epstein’s sex trafficking.

We’re joined now by Drop Site's Murtaza Hussain, who's been reporting on Epstein with his colleague, Ryan Grim.

Murtaza, welcome back to Democracy Now! Explain what you feel the media is not covering. What is the role of Jeffrey Epstein when it comes to U.S. foreign policy?

MURTAZA HUSSAIN: So, there’s been a lot of justifiable focus on Epstein’s very grave crimes and facilitation of the crimes of others related to sex trafficking and sex abuse. But one critical aspect of the story that’s not been covered is Epstein’s own relations to foreign governments, the U.S. government, and particularly foreign intelligence agencies.

Now, this information is not entirely private. A lot of it is out there, actually, in House disclosures, as parts of certain lawsuits which have been leveled against Epstein or over Epstein’s activities over the past few years and in a few databases of leaked emails from certain figures around the world which have come out showing extensive contacts with Epstein.

So, I think that a lot of this coverage of him so far, to date, at least, it’s focused, again, on salacious details of his life and the crimes he was involved in related to minors, women. But the other aspect, the political aspect, and who he was and the role he played at this very high level, facilitating deals, interacting and liaisoning with intelligence agencies in different parts of the world, has not been covered.

We don’t know exactly who Epstein was specifically to be in the position to commit the crimes that he was doing, and our story is aiming to focus and shedding light upon one particular aspect, which is Epstein’s extensive relationship with Israeli intelligence, U.S. intelligence and the intelligence agencies of other countries, as well, too. He was a dealmaker and a fixer at a very, very elite level, and he was making deals that would ultimately wind up, in some cases, being signed as formal security agreements between the government of Israel and other countries. That’s what our series is focusing on right now, and it’s just coming across naturally looking at the information contained in the publicly available data about his communications over the past — during the period of about 2013 to 2016.

AMY GOODMAN: So, tell us who Yoni Koren is. You reveal that this senior Israeli intelligence officer lived in one of Epstein’s apartments, had close personal ties to former CIA Director Leon Panetta. Can you talk about what specific intelligence-gathering operations you believe that Koren was conducting from Epstein’s apartment, and also the relationship between Jeffrey Epstein and the former prime minister of Israel, Ehud Barak, which has been documented over and over again?

MURTAZA HUSSAIN: So, a lot of the information we have now coming out about these intelligence ties do come from private correspondence between Barak and Epstein, which were leaked by hackers some years ago and posted online but have never really been analyzed in great detail, but shed profound light on Epstein’s ties not just to Barak, but officials all over the world and foreign governments in Africa, in Central Asia, in Europe, in Russia, whom he was helping connect Barak with.

Interestingly, Barak was relying on Epstein’s support, rather than vice versa, despite the fact that Ehud Barak was a very powerful figure in the Israeli security establishment. And so, these emails, in addition to House disclosures, which also point to the same information, show that this intelligence agent, who was a longtime military intelligence agent in Israel, who was Barak’s chief aide for many years, lived at Epstein’s house for significant stretches of time, weeks at a time, between this period of 2013 to 2015.

He was staying in Epstein’s house. We don’t know specifically from the communications what they may have been working on or what his role may have been there, the reason he was staying at his house. Barak would also stay at his house sometimes to hold meetings and to do business in New York, that was facilitated by that. But we do see that they were corresponding, and at one point, Epstein just transferred money to Koren.

And there was also communication between Barak and Koren in the inbox which we believe is coded communication, perhaps referring to dead drops of information or something else in New York City that they were engaged in. It’s hard to tell, because part of the reason that this correspondence is interesting is that we knew from the Snowden disclosures many years ago that Barak and Koren were being surveilled by the NSA in New York around this time or in the United States around this time.

So, whatever they were doing with Epstein in his house in New York amongst each other, with money, with sharing information or data or packages or something else, it was taking place in this period. And again, the interesting thing is that even if one would not look at the emails and keep those separate, this information is in the House disclosures. In Jeffrey Epstein’s calendars, it’s mentioned that Koren is coming and going from his home, and the day of his departure, the day he was staying, how long he was staying for.

So, this is stuff that the media could be — the broader media could be covering. It’s just escaped attention for reasons which, you know, one could speculate, or it was hard to say exactly. But, you know, we’re going to continue drilling down on this, not shying away from the political implications of his activities, Epstein’s activities, and the ties he had with powerful figures like Barak and intelligence agents like Koren.

AMY GOODMAN: The leaked emails show that the former Prime Minister Ehud Barak bookmarked a private initiative with Oracle’s Larry Ellison. Can you talk about the significance of this initiative?

MURTAZA HUSSAIN: So, what we saw from the email is effectively that around the time that Epstein and Barak were corresponding, that Koren’s activities in New York at Epstein’s home were going on, Barak himself had gone on to have a separate meeting with Larry Ellison. Now, Larry Ellison is a very well-known pro-Israel donor. He’s a billionaire and the founder of Oracle. Currently, he’s involved in, with his son, buying up much of the American media.

We’ve done other reporting on Ellison, drawing not from this database but from a separate database of communications which were also leaked and posted on a website called the Distributed Denial of Service — Distributed Denial of Secrets, and they show that Ellison had been very involved with the Israeli government in other facets, helping, in a way, shape the American political system for Israel. He was helping vet political candidates at the behest of Israeli officials for their favorability towards Israel to determine who he’d give money to.

So, we don’t know from the correspondence with Barak what he was discussing with Ellison at that time or what the private initiative may have been. There’s no further — you know, not everything was discussed by email; a lot of things were discussed by phone, so not everything is documented in that manner. But we do know that Ellison was very closely involved in promoting the perceived interests of Israel in the United States at that time, and Barak was doing the same thing.

And interestingly, Epstein was doing the same thing. Epstein was helping Barak facilitate Israeli interests around the world, different countries, helping him refine his pitches, connecting him with people to help pursue the geopolitical interests of the Israeli government. And this is all coming as one parcel of that. And so, at Barak’s meeting with Ellison, one can imagine it would have something to do with the ongoing efforts he’d been engaged in.

AMY GOODMAN: And the leaked emails showing Jeffrey Epstein and Barak securing a private meeting with Vladimir Putin in 2013 to orchestrate the removal of Bashar al-Assad, I mean, it didn’t succeed, but in an email exchange, Epstein wrote to the former prime minister of Israel, “with civil unrest exploding in ukraine syria, somolia [sic], libya, and the desperation of those in power, isn’t this perfect for you.” Barak replied, “You’re right [in] a way. But not simple to transform it into a cash flow. A subject for Saturday,” Ehud Barak wrote. Can you talk about, as we wrap up, that relationship between Jeffrey Epstein and Ehud Barak attempting to profit from the war in Syria?

MURTAZA HUSSAIN: Well, that email that you just read out is a very important email, because it kind of explains the broader thesis that Epstein and Barak had been operating under and what they’d been doing exactly.

They’d been going around the world, pitching — Epstein had been pitching Barak as someone who could solve the security problems of different countries and introducing him to powerful people in these countries — we’re going to cover more of those in the weeks and months to come — and telling them that Barak, through his connections with the Israeli intelligence and Israeli intelligence-linked surveillance technology firms especially, could help introduce him to these countries, embed them, and then later sign formal deals with Israel. We did a story about this, how it manifested in Côte d’Ivoire, also Mongolia.

In this tie with Russia, it’s very fascinating, because Epstein was the one who was arranging a backchannel between Barak and Putin to discuss this deal to remove Bashar al-Assad and replace him with, putatively, a pro-Russian dictator who Israel was also OK with. That didn’t come to pass. But I think that the interactions show a tremendous access that Epstein enjoyed not just to Israeli officials or U.S. officials, but also to Russian officials. He had — he would have the ability to get meetings with Putin. He met with Putin himself on numerous occasions, according to his own correspondence. And that is something that — you know, how did that come about? What was the background behind that? We don’t know.

But we do know that, at the very least, Epstein was somebody who considered himself to have the ability to access high-level Russian officials. He claimed in the emails, as I mentioned, that he met Putin, or Putin asked to meet him. That’s Epstein’s own depiction of the interaction. But he did absolutely have the juice to get Barak in the room with Putin. And the funny thing is that Barak had to rely on Epstein for that, to create that backchannel. It shows the tremendous influence and power that Epstein had, which does not really — you know, we have not had a full accounting of that. That has not been accounted for in our public understanding of this case.

We hope to shed more light on that in our own reporting, but we need the government, we need other news outlets to pay attention to this and put together the pieces of who Epstein was and the role he played as an international dealmaker.

AMY GOODMAN: Murtaza Hussain, I want to thank you for being with us, national security reporter at Drop Site News. We’ll link to your new articles about Jeffrey Epstein’s ties to Israeli intelligence.

Coming up, Put Your Soul on Your Hand and Walk, a new documentary on Gaza by the acclaimed Iranian director Sepideh Farsi.

[break]

AMY GOODMAN: “Black Waters,” performed Nora Brown and Stephanie Coleman in our Democracy Now! studio.

Epstein & Israel: Drop Site News Investigates Jeffrey Epstein’s Ties to Israeli Intelligence | Democracy Now!

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How Jeffrey Epstein Helped Israel Establish A Police State In This Country

The story began in late 2010, when a disputed presidential election in Cote d'Ivoire triggered violence.

Edited by:NDTV News Desk World News

Ehud Barak coordinated meetings via Epstein in New York.

When a West African nation teetered on the edge of chaos, two unlikely figures moved behind the scenes to shape its future. One was Jeffrey Epstein, infamous financier and convicted sex offender. The other, Ehud Barak, former Israeli prime minister and defence minister. Together, they turned Cote d'Ivoire's political unrest into a business opportunity using secret emails, private meetings, and behind-the-scenes diplomacy.

The story began in late 2010, when a disputed presidential election in Cote d'Ivoire triggered violence. The UN certified Alassane Ouattara as the winner, but incumbent Laurent Gbagbo refused to concede. A French and UN intervention removed Gbagbo in 2011. In June 2012, Ouattara foiled a coup plot and five days later met Barak and Israel's Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu in Jerusalem to discuss counterterrorism cooperation. An Israeli delegation soon visited Côte d'Ivoire to advise on security and rebuilding the presidential army.

In 2013, at the end of his tenure as Israel's Defence Minister and after his supposed “retirement,” Barak sold Israeli security services to governments in trouble, with Epstein quietly helping. In emails seen by Drop Site News, Epstein wrote to Barak: “with civil unrest exploding [...] and the desperation of those in power, isn't this perfect for you.” Barak replied: “You're right [in] a way. But not simple to transform it into a cash flow.”

In Cote d'Ivoire, this involved brokering deals between the Israeli state and the West African nation. Leaked emails and US House Oversight Committee files cited by Drop Site News show Epstein's involvement in Israeli intelligence operations in Africa in 2012, while Barak was still Defence Minister.

Epstein helped present plans to monitor Ivorian phone and internet communications, created by former Israeli intelligence officials. These private arrangements later became an official security agreement between Israel and Cote d'Ivoire in 2014.

Behind the scenes, Epstein coordinated key meetings. On June 18, 2012, the same day Barak met Ouattara, Ouattara's son met Epstein in New York. Three months later, Epstein met Ouattara's niece Nina Keita and then Barak privately at the Regency Hotel. Epstein later flew to Africa, planning stops in Cote d'Ivoire, Angola, and Senegal.

Barak has claimed his dealings with Epstein were private, but documents suggest Epstein acted as a fixer. After leaving office in March 2013, Barak continued negotiating the deal. On March 19, he received an email from his brother-in-law Doron Cohen with materials from MF Group outlining plans for a surveillance and video monitoring centre in Abidjan. Communications were kept secret using cryptic references.

Negotiations were briefly disrupted by a UN report on Israeli-labelled ammunition, and the embargo was extended. Barak then called Israeli security figures including Amos Malka and Michael “Micky” Federmann, and on May 27, Sidi Tiemoko Toure, Chief of Staff to Ouattara.

Using a “non-security” pretext of building hospitals, Barak arrived in Abidjan on August 1, 2013, meeting top officials and President Ouattara.

On September 16, 2013, Barak received a 13-page proposal from Aharon Ze'evi-Farkash detailing a SIGINT (Signals Intelligence) system for Cote d'Ivoire. Farkash wrote, “The document is based on experience that has been accumulated during Amnon's and my service in the unit… I believe this meets the ‘export‑of‑knowledge' test. I thought it appropriate to bring this to your attention.”

Barak coordinated further meetings via Epstein in New York.

By mid-2014, UN embargoes were lifted, and Israel's defence and internal security agreement with Cote d'Ivoire was signed.

Emails also found that Yoni Koren, a former Israeli intelligence officer and longtime aide to Ehud Barak, stayed at Epstein's Manhattan home multiple times between 2013 and 2015. A Mossad veteran, Koren continued acting as an informal intermediary between Barak and Israeli intelligence.

How Jeffrey Epstein Helped Israel Establish A Police State In This Country

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Want to Scroll Through Jeffrey Epstein's Gmail Account? Now You Can

Story by Jonathan Bernstein

Rolling Stone, November 24, 2025

Key takeaways

Luke Igel and Riley Walz transformed 20,000+ Epstein emails into a hyper-realistic Gmail parody, making the inbox easier to read and explore. The site went viral, revealing mundane and shocking exchanges with figures like Ehud Barak, Steve Bannon, and Ghislaine Maxwell, highlighting the "banality of evil." Using modern AI tools, the project took just five hours, demonstrating how software now allows rapid, accessible data visualization for public exploration.

A few weeks ago, Luke Igel had an idea. Like many Americans, Igel, a 26-year-old software engineer and tech CEO based in San Francisco, had been looking through the latest dump of Jeffrey Epstein's emails and discussing them with his friends. But he was finding the data dump both hard to read and hard to contextualize. What these emails really represented, Igel thought, was a guy who sits around on his ipad or Blackberry all day emailing everyone he knows.

"My friend was talking about all this stuff he was finding," says Igel. "And I found it impressive he'd been able to infer that from these very hard to read PDFs. I found that they were hard to read as emails."

To solve the problem, Igel, who runs an AI video assistant company, called up his old friend, Riley Walz, a fellow Zoomer tech savant who's made a name in the past few years for his viral data stunts (in September, Walz scraped government data to create a real-time "Find My Friends"-like interface showing the location of every cop giving out parking tickets in San Francisco). "Every time I see a high effort, shockingly good site or stunt, I scroll down and it's my friend Riley," says Igel,

In a matter of five hours, Walz and Igel transformed all the raw data provided by the latest Epstein dump - 20,000 emails, give or take - into Jmail, a hyper-realistic Gmail-like interface that lays out what Epstein's actual email inbox might look like. The website, which went live on Friday, went viral over the weekend, giving users an insight into the daily life of one of the world's most discussed criminals. The surreal result is a representation of a chronological inbox that has Quora and Flipboard email blasts interspersed with exchanges with former Israeli prime minister Ehud Barak and winking emails to Steve Bannon. ("If you form a church you may be able to tell mueller you have a confession privelege [sic]," he wrote in 2018.) A loaded 2011 email to Ghislaine Maxwell - "i want you to realize that that dog that hasn't barked is Trump" - sits between links to CNBC articles. As one early online responder to the data stunt wrote, "Oh man, the banality of evil in there."

"The Epstein case has always felt very Lovecraftian, very True Detective, where it's driven all the best people insane because there's just too much information and it feels like puncturing holes in reality every single time news comes out," says Igel. "Even with this recent set of data, it doesn't feel like the full story is being revealed. If anything, it feels like a series of red herrings and a series of shockingly human moments." 

Speaking with Rolling Stone the day Jmail went live, Igel is excited about his new project. While on the phone, he pauses for a moment when he thinks the site has momentarily crashed, then breathes a sigh of relief when he realizes it hasn't. He says that recent AI tools have made it so that a project that might have taken five full days just a few years ago now takes five hours. "All these ways people were promised how great software could be a few decades ago, it really does feel like it's coming true now," says Igel. "It's so quick and cheap and easy to make software."

And he wants to stress that his Gmail recreation is in fact a parody and not a clone. "I'm pretty sure parodies are protected," he says. Mostly, it was a challenge that he wanted to tackle to make the emails more navigable for himself and the general public. "The company that I run, we index large amounts of video, so this is just a very fun problem that I've always enjoyed building tools for."

Mostly, Igel wants to emphasize that more people can and should do projects like this. "It was not that hard to build," he says. "There were two steps: One was extracting these very messy data from those PDFs, putting them back into the data form they came from, which was email, and then building a very faithful Gmail parody." They started the project at 9 p.m. last Wednesday, were finished by 1 a.m., then spent Thursday fixing a few bugs before going live Friday.

Walz and Igel originally did a deep dive in how to recreate the exact feel and look of a Gmail inbox from the time appropriate era (the mid-late 2010's), but they ultimately decided it was a distraction that would take away from the point of their project: to make these Epstein emails feel as real and as quotidian as possible. "We found that it actually hit a lot harder for people if we just did 2025 Gmail," Igel says. 

Assuming Jmail stays up, Igel says the project may very well not be over. If and when more Epstein emails are released, Jmail may change as needed. 

"We'll be keeping an eye on it," Igel says.

Want to Scroll Through Jeffrey Epstein's Gmail Account? Now You Can

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Charlie Kirk’s death is tearing MAGA apart

The killing of the Turning Point USA founder didn’t unify the base — it triggered infighting

By Amanda Marcotte

Salon, November 24, 2025

Key Takeaways:

Kirk’s assassination was expected to galvanize MAGA supporters, but Trump’s approval dropped and the predicted surge in recruits never materialized.

Right-wing figures like Tucker Carlson, Candace Owens, and Ben Shapiro are clashing over influence, Israel policy, and ambitions, fueling internal power struggles.

With Kirk gone, far-right influencers like Nick Fuentes are gaining prominence, spreading anti-semitic conspiracy theories, and pushing a more fascist agenda within MAGA circles.

The shooting death of Charlie Kirk was supposed to be a galvanizing moment for the MAGA movement. Mere hours after an assassin’s bullet tore through the neck of the Turning Point USA (TPUSA) founder on Sept. 10 on the campus of Utah Valley University, right-wing leaders and media figures, including President Donald Trump, were declaring Kirk “a martyr” and insisting his death was the opportunity to destroy the left once and for all. His memorial a week and a half later was an enormous event, filling an Arizona stadium while speakers proclaimed that “Charlie Kirk died for all of you!” and predicting that his killing would “awaken a generation and save a nation.” Vice President JD Vance spoke, observing, “This is not a funeral but a revival.”

Now, a little more than two months later, the predicted wave of new recruits to the MAGA cause has not manifested. Trump’s approval ratings have declined a couple points, hitting a new low in his second term. In the immediate aftermath of Kirk’s assassination, large numbers of people were fired or harassed, as conservatives targeted private citizens for perceived insults of their slain hero. But after the public outcry that followed ABC’s attempted termination of late show host Jimmy Kimmel for a mild joke related to the shooting, the campaign to use Kirk’s death as an excuse to silence dissent largely fizzled out. As Russell Payne reported for Salon in October, groups that formed to target progressives for abuse after Kirk’s death have already started to fold.

But even in the early days, there were signs that Kirk’s death was not leading to the authoritarian takeover his fans had envisioned. Less predictable, though, is what came next. Far from unifying the MAGA movement, Kirk’s death opened the door to increasingly ugly infighting, as various right-wing influencers vie to fill the power vacuum left by the TPUSA leader. Conservative media figures like Tucker Carlson, Candace Owens and Ben Shapiro have been sniping at each other online, flinging accusations of dark conspiracies and anti-semitism, some of which even appear to be true. The immediate cause of the strife is a growing divide over U.S. support for Israel, but there’s little doubt that the feuds are fueled by unchecked ambition: To exploit Kirk’s death to get more followers — and more power — in the toxic MAGA media ecosystem.

While Kirk was never the mega-celebrity the right now pretends he was, it does seem he was powerful enough within MAGA to keep a lid on the burgeoning desire that exists in some circles to embrace overt anti-Semitism and even Nazi sympathies.

While Kirk was never the mega-celebrity the right now pretends he was, it does seem he was powerful enough within MAGA to keep a lid on the burgeoning desire that exists in some circles to embrace overt anti-semitism and even Nazi sympathies. He was the frequent hate target of Nick Fuentes, a Hitler-praising far-right influencer with an alarmingly large following, who viewed Kirk as a major obstacle to his schemes to remake MAGA in his own proudly fascist image. Turns out he was right about that; now that Kirk’s gone, Fuentes’ star is rising. Last month, he sat down for a tongue bath of an interview with Carlson, which the former Fox News host justified by bluntly declaring Fuentes’ popularity demanded it. That led to Shapiro and GOP Texas Sen. Ted Cruz, among others, to openly condemn Carlson. Shapiro dubbed Carlson “the most virulent super-spreader of vile ideas in America.”

The Fuentes vision is being taken up in bits and pieces by the Trump administration. Last week, ProPublica exposed how a White House lawyer with a self-described “Nazi streak” had been working to protect accused sex trafficker Andrew Tate from a federal investigation. On Thursday, the Washington Post reported that, under the leadership of Homeland Security Secretary Kristi Noem, the Coast Guard will stop classifying swastikas and nooses as hate symbols.

Shapiro isn’t just facing tension with Carlson. He’s also competing with Owens, his former Daily Wire employee, whose open flirtation with anti-semitism eventually forced him to fire her last year. She struck out on her own and has been building her audience, rapidly surpassing Shapiro in podcast rankings. In the past month, she’s garnered over twice the YouTube views as Shapiro, who has been losing viewers at a steady pace in recent weeks.

The key to Owens’ success seems to be the very anti-semitism that got her fired from the Daily Wire. She’s been fueling, in her usual oblique “just asking questions” fashion, an elaborate conspiracy theory suggesting that the Israeli government orchestrated Kirk’s murder to keep him from speaking out against the war in Gaza. She’s also been asking pointed questions that suggest Kirk’s widow, Erika Kirk, was complicit. While Owens mostly sticks to raised eyebrows and claims that something isn’t adding up with the official story — which is that a lone gunman shot Kirk for still somewhat obscure reasons — plenty of far-right people online are openly declaring that it was a Jewish conspiracy.

Want more Amanda Marcotte on politics? Sign up for her free newsletter, Standing Room Only, now also on YouTube or wherever you get your podcasts.

There’s no polling yet on how widespread this conspiracy theory has become. But there are troubling signs that it’s getting a huge amount of traction among everyday Republican voters. On a recent episode of the “Focus Group” podcast, which featured a panel of loyal Trump voters, multiple participants echoed the claim that Israel’s government and/or Jewish Americans ordered Kirk’s killing.

Whenever people on the right criticize Owens or Carlson for pushing these conspiracy theories or anti-semitic rhetoric, they accuse their detractors of being “Zionists” who want to draw the U.S. into “a forever war with Iran.” This is stolen valor, of course, as they’re cynically appropriating the moral authority of progressives who object to the Gaza war on humanitarian grounds. But as progressives have shown, one can object to Israel’s genocidal assault on Palestinians without engaging in anti-semitic conspiracy theories. And one certainly doesn’t have to elevate Fuentes, who openly argues that Jews are engaged in a conspiracy to destroy “Western civilization” — the same conspiracy theory Nazis used to justify the Holocaust.

Fuentes appears to believe that all this infighting will destroy MAGA, creating an opportunity for his ascendance as the right’s new — and unapologetically fascist — leader. On Nov. 14, he triumphantly declared, “MAGA was sufficient for 2016, but it isn’t anymore. Now we need something stronger.” Three days later, he posted a video bragging about his soaring view counts, declaring his intention to “infiltrate politics” and promising to back Republican candidates who embrace his ideology.

The fighting has started to spill out into all corners. One especially stupid feud has sprung up between radio personality Mark Levin and ex-Fox News host Megyn Kelly, who refused to condemn Carlson for his flirtations with anti-semitism. Levin objected, and their tiff is growing increasingly heated as they bicker online. On Thursday, Kelly called Levin a “lying POS.” He responded by calling her “a grifter” with “the mouth of lowlife” and a “limited vocabulary.”

After Kirk’s death, TPUSA swiftly anointed his wife, Erika Kirk, as the organization’s new leader. At the time, I predicted she’d fail because her previous role was always as his brand-polishing faux-housewife. There’s no evidence she’s a talented organizer in her own right. But I couldn’t predict how bizarre her flailing would be, especially after she publicly hugged Vance in a way that stoked widespread rumors that the two are more than friends.

Charlie Kirk was never the great youth ambassador as depicted in the posthumous tributes and on Fox News. But his widow’s missteps have revealed that he did, in fact, share Trump’s odd talent for holding together the cantankerous MAGA coalition.

Now that Kirk is gone and Trump’s health isn’t looking good, internal strife is tearing up the MAGA movement. Fuentes was premature in tweeting “MAGA is dead” earlier this month. That obituary has been written many times, and it’s always been premature. But it’s not wrong that the movement is starting to look a little sickly.

Charlie Kirk's death is tearing MAGA apart - Salon.com 

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Trump-Epstein Relationship Timeline: What the Files Reveal?

By Margaret Hartmann

Intelligencer November 24, 2025

For years, Donald Trump stoked conspiracy theories about Jeffrey Epstein and his many powerful friends and associates, despite lingering questions about his own ties to the late sex offender. Trump and Epstein were friends for more than 15 years. The future president was photographed with Epstein many times, flew on his plane, and praised him as a “terrific guy” in the press. Trump comes up repeatedly in old Epstein court documents, and his name is all over the new Epstein emails.

Trump has repeatedly denied any Epstein-related wrongdoing, and there is no smoking gun that proves the president was on the so-called “client list” or even knew about Epstein’s crimes. However, Trump has repeatedly made contradictory statements about his former pal, and in one newly released email, Epstein claimed Trump “knew about the girls.”

Here’s a guide, which we’ll keep updated, to everything we know about Trump’s relationship with Epstein and how he’s addressed the political fallout.

What are the Epstein files, and is Trump in them?

The phrase “Epstein files” refers to the materials — court documents, flight logs, emails, images, recordings, etc. — amassed during state and federal investigations into the late sex offender. Thousands of pages related to Epstein’s prosecution, and the case against his accomplice Ghislaine Maxwell, have been released over the years. Calls to “release the Epstein files” refer to the government records that still have not been made public.

Trump is mentioned in many publicly available Epstein materials. Attorney General Pam Bondi reportedly told him in May that his name also appears in the unreleased Epstein files, and weeks later, the FBI and DOJ said there would be no further disclosures on the pedophile and his associates. Even if this is true, it still doesn’t prove Trump was involved in Epstein’s crimes.

What is the Epstein ‘client list’?

Like “Epstein files, “client list” may be a misnomer. It refers to a hypothetical list of people for whom Epstein procured girls and woman. While Attorney General Pam Bondi once said the list was “sitting on my desk right now to review,” it’s unclear if such a document exists. As the New York Times noted, “there has never been a reference to any ‘client list’ in any of the civil litigation brought by victims.”

What do the new Epstein emails say about Trump?

On November 12, 2025, the House Oversight Committee released 23,000 pages of documents from Epstein’s estate. These included many typo-strewn emails Epstein sent between 2011 and 2019, in which he mocked Trump, hinted he had damaging information on the new president, and even claimed Trump was aware of “the girls.”

In April 2011, Epstein wrote to Maxwell, “i want you to realize that that dog that hasn’t barked is trump.. [REDACTED VICTIM] spent hours at my house with him ,, he has never once been mentioned. police chief. etc. im 75 % there.”

Maxwell replied, “I have been thinking about that …”

In a January 2019 email to journalist Michael Wolff, Epstein mentioned Mar-a-Lago, Trump’s Florida club, then said, “trump said he asked me to resign, never a member ever,” adding, “of course he knew about the girls as he asked ghislane to stop.”

About a month later, Epstein sent Wolff what appear to be notes on his previous criminal prosecution in Florida. “Trump knew of it. and came to my house many times during that period,” adding, “He never got a massage.”

Obviously, it’s very possible that the sex offender was lying in these emails. There are no messages from Trump in the latest batch of documents, and all of the emails were sent years after he and Epstein reportedly ended their friendship.

What’s the timeline of Trump and Epstein’s relationship?

Here’s a brief overview of their friendship and falling-out, and how Trump’s political career intersected with Epstein’s prosecution.

1980s to early 2000s: Trump and Epstein are friends. They are spotted partying together on multiple occasions, Trump flies on Epstein’s private jets at least seven times, and his name and number appear in Epstein’s “little black book” (along with several Trump family members and many other famous and powerful figures).

2004: Trump and Epstein have a “falling-out,” as the president put it years later. The cause may have been a real-estate battle, but Trump has not confirmed this.

2006: After Florida police investigate multiple claims of Epstein sexually abusing underage girls, Epstein is indicted on just a single count of soliciting prostitution. Florida officials are accused of giving Epstein special treatment, and the FBI launches an investigation.

2008: Epstein pleads guilty to two state charges after striking a plea deal with the U.S. Attorney in Miami, Alexander Acosta, to avoid federal prosecution (Acosta then served as Trump’s Labor secretary in his first term). Epstein is sentenced to 18 months in jail but serves most of his sentence in a work-release program that lets him leave jail during the day.

July 6, 2019: Epstein is arrested on federal sex-trafficking charges in New York. Acosta resigns from the Trump administration days later amid public outcry over his decision not to prosecute Epstein years earlier.

August 10, 2019: Epstein is found dead in his Manhattan jail cell. His death is ruled a suicide.

2024: Thousands of pages of court documents from an Epstein civil suit are unsealed, reviving interest in the case. Trump is mentioned multiple times, but the documents don’t reveal any incriminating information about him. During the 2024 campaign, Trump suggests he’ll declassify the federal government’s Epstein files if reelected.

February 2025: Attorney General Pam Bondi publicly teases the release of more Epstein files, suggesting in a Fox News interview that the “client list” is “sitting on my desk right now to review.” Days later, right-wing influencers are given binders of Epstein materials at the White House, which turn out to be previously released documents.

July 7, 2025: In an unsigned memo, the FBI and DOJ say that following an “exhaustive review,” they have determined that there is no “client list,” and nothing in the Epstein files warrants further investigation. The memo presents a previously released jail surveillance video as proof that Epstein killed himself — but it’s missing a minute of footage. The memo says there will be no further Epstein document releases.

When did Trump and Epstein become friends?

Trump began palling around with Epstein in the late ’80s, but we don’t know exactly how or when they met.

In 2002, Trump told New York Magazine, “I’ve known Jeff for 15 years. Terrific guy. He’s a lot of fun to be with. It is even said that he likes beautiful women as much as I do, and many of them are on the younger side. No doubt about it — Jeffrey enjoys his social life.”

Are there photos and video of Trump and Epstein together?

Yes. There are several verified images of the two men partying in the 1990s and early aughts.

Footage unearthed by NBC News in 2019 shows the two men joking around and ogling women during a party at Trump’s Mar-a-Lago resort in 1992.

There are also photos that show Epstein attended Trump’s 1993 wedding to Marla Maples. CNN published the newly discovered images on July 22, 2025, along with new footage of Trump, Epstein, and Melania Trump at a 1999 Victoria’s Secret fashion event in New York.

This 1993 photo of Donald Trump and his children Eric and Ivanka standing next to Epstein, which CNN presented as new, has actually been circulating for years. British photographer Dafydd Jones told Snopes last year, “I can of course confirm that those people were all at the Harley Davidson Cafe and I did do a picture in black-and-white on film.”

The New York Times published this picture of Trump and Epstein with the singer James Brown on July 24, 2025. It’s unclear when or where the photo was taken.

Photo: Davidoff Studios Photography/Getty Images

They also attended a Victoria’s Secret “Angels” party together in New York on April 9, 1997.

Trump and Epstein at a Victoria’s Secret “Angels” event at the club Duvet in New York on April 9, 1997. Photo: Getty Images

The now-famous image below shows Trump and then-girlfriend Melania Knauss partying with Epstein and Ghislaine Maxwell at Mar-a-Lago on February 12, 2000.

Photo: Davidoff Studios Photography/Getty Images

What did Trump write in Epstein’s birthday card?

Trump reportedly contributed a message and a bawdy sketch to an album Maxwell put together for Epstein’s 50th birthday in 2003. Trump is listed in the table of contents under “friends” (along with Bill Clinton). The leather-bound album was reviewed by Justice Department officials who investigated Epstein and Maxwell years ago, but its existence was only made public in a July 2025 Wall Street Journal report.

Trump responded by suing the Wall Street Journal and its parent companies for defamation. He denied writing the letter or drawing the picture. “I never wrote a picture in my life. I don’t draw pictures of women,” he said. “It’s not my language. It’s not my words.”

The initial Journal report only described the drawing, but Democrats on the House Oversight Committee released the image in September after issuing a subpoena for the birthday book to Epstein’s estate.

The text inside is an imagined conversation between Trump and Epstein:

“Voice Over: There must be more to life than having everything,” the note began.

Donald: Yes, there is, but I won’t tell you what it is.

Jeffrey: Nor will I, since I also know what it is. 

Donald: We have certain things in common, Jeffrey. 

Jeffrey: Yes, we do, come to think of it. 

Donald: Enigmas never age, have you noticed that? 

Jeffrey: As a matter of fact, it was clear to me the last time I saw you. 

Trump: A pal is a wonderful thing. Happy Birthday — and may every day be another wonderful secret.

Trump claimed the note and his signature at the bottom are fake.

Did Trump ever visit Epstein’s island?

There is no evidence that Trump ever visited Little St. James, Epstein’s residence in the U.S. Virgin Islands. Epstein allegedly trafficked and sexually abused women and girls there, which is why it was nicknamed “Orgy Island,” “Pedophile Island,” and “Island of Sin.”

Trump has denied ever visiting Epstein’s island. But he has been happy to fan similar unfounded conspiracy theories about his political rivals. When asked in 2019 if he believed the Clintons were involved in Epstein’s death, Trump answered:

I have no idea. I know he was on his plane 27 times, and he said he was on the plane four times. But when they checked the plane logs, Bill Clinton, who was a very good friend of Epstein, he was on the plane about 27 or 28 times, so why did he say four times?

And then the question you have to ask is “Did Bill Clinton go to the island?” because Epstein had an island that was not a good place as I understand it, and I was never there. So you have to ask, “Did Bill Clinton go to the island?” If you find that out, you’re going to know a lot.

Like Trump, Clinton flew on Epstein’s plane. But none of the Epstein flight logs list either president as a passenger on Virgin Islands–bound flights. A Clinton spokesman said the former president “has never been to Little St. James,” and his office has repeatedly said he “knows nothing” about Epstein’s “terrible crimes.”

Did Trump ever fly on Epstein’s plane?

Yes. Flight logs show Trump was on Epstein’s private jet multiple times, though he has denied it.

Trump flew on Epstein’s plane at least seven times between 1993 and 1997, according to flight logs made public during various court proceedings. As the Miami Herald reported in 2021, Trump was accompanied by his then-wife, Marla Maples, and two of his young children on some of these flights:

The flights were all between Palm Beach and New York City airports, with the June 1994 flight stopping at Ronald Reagan Washington National Airport between Palm Beach and New York.

A woman named Marla, apparently Trump’s then-wife Marla Maples, is listed as joining him on the June 1994 flight, along with a Tiffany, apparently their then-infant daughter, and a nanny. Trump’s son Eric is listed as joining him on an August 1995 flight between Palm Beach and New York.

Nevertheless, in a January 2024 Truth Social post, Trump claimed, “I was never on Epstein’s Plane, or at his ‘stupid’ Island.”

Bizarrely, Trump unwittingly used Epstein’s plane to fly to several 2024 fundraisers. The Miami Herald reported the campaign rented a jet that was formerly owned by Epstein from a private charter service after Trump’s own private jet experienced mechanical problems on August 9, 2024. (This was not the infamous “Lolita Express,” which Epstein replaced in 2017 and has since been destroyed.)

What happened to Trump accuser Katie Johnson?

In 2016, a woman who went by the pseudonyms Katie Johnson and Jane Doe in legal filings accused Trump of raping her in 1994, when she was 13, during an orgy held at Epstein’s Manhattan home. She accused Epstein of raping her as well.

Three suits were filed over the same allegations; the first was dismissed for failure to properly state a claim, and another was voluntarily dismissed. The third case was withdrawn just days before the 2016 election, and the accuser canceled a press conference at the last minute. Her attorney, Lisa Bloom, said the woman had received death threats and “she has decided she is too afraid to show her face … She is in terrible fear.”

The circumstances around the cases were bizarre, as Vox summarized at the time:

It was the end of an incredibly strange case that featured an anonymous plaintiff who had refused almost all requests for interviews, two anonymous corroborating witnesses whom no one in the press had spoken to, and a couple of seriously shady characters — with an anti-Trump agenda and a penchant for drama — who had aggressively shopped the story around to media outlets for over a year.

Those shady characters — a former reality-TV producer who calls himself Al Taylor and a Never Trump conservative activist named Steve Baer — had been mostly unsuccessful in getting the media to bite. There are a few very good reasons for that, which the Huffington Post’s Ryan Grim succinctly summed up: Taylor and Baer have been really sketchy about the whole thing, and since the accuser is anonymous, journalists can’t do anything to verify her claims. The only journalist who has actually interviewed Johnson, Emily Shugerman at Revelist, came away confused and even doubting whether Johnson really exists.

Trump has been accused of sexual misconduct by more than 20 other women over the years. In May 2023, a federal jury found Trump civilly liable for sexually abusing E. Jean Carroll in the mid-1990s and for defaming her when he denied her rape allegation in 2022. He was ordered to pay Carroll $5 million in damages. A federal appeals court affirmed the jury verdict in July 2025. In November, Trump asked the U.S. Supreme Court to overturn the verdict.

None of the women who accused Trump of misconduct were underage, except for several Miss Teen USA contestants who said Trump walked in on them while they were changing. Only one of the president’s accusers, Stacey Williams, said Epstein was involved in Trump’s alleged sexual misconduct.

Did anyone else accuse Trump of abusing women with Epstein?

Aside from the strange Katie Johnson cases, no one has specifically accused Trump of participating in Epstein’s abuse of underage girls. However, former model Stacey Williams claimed Trump had groped her in 1993 as Epstein looked on.

Williams had previously alluded to this on social media, but she publicly described the incident in detail for the first time during a Zoom call on October 21, 2024, organized by Survivors4Harris, a group of sexual-abuse survivors supporting presidential candidate Kamala Harris.

Williams said that during a 1993 walk with Epstein, whom she was dating, he suggested they stop at Trump Tower to visit Donald. She said on the call:

Moments later, Trump was greeting us. And he pulled me into him, and started groping me. He put his hands all over my breasts, my waist, my butt. And I froze. And I froze because I was so deeply confused about what was happening because the hands were moving all over me yet these two men were like smiling at one another and continuing on in their conversation. 

She said Epstein berated her afterward, and she came to feel the groping had been part of a “twisted game” between the two men. A short time later, Trump sent Williams a postcard from Mar-a-Lago via her agent. The Guardian published a photo of it on October 23.

Trump campaign press secretary Karoline Leavitt denied the story, telling The Guardian, “These accusations, made by a former activist for Barack Obama and announced on a Harris campaign call two weeks before the election, are unequivocally false. It’s obvious this fake story was contrived by the Harris campaign.”

When did Trump cut ties with Epstein?

Trump has claimed he and Epstein had a “falling-out” years before the financier was first arrested in Palm Beach in 2005 after being accused of paying a 14-year-old girl for sex. There are reports that a battle over a choice Palm Beach property was what ended the Trump-Epstein friendship, but it’s unclear what exactly came between the two.

Days after Epstein was arrested on federal sex-trafficking charges in 2019, Trump downplayed their relationship while speaking to reporters in the Oval Office. He said he merely “knew him like everybody in Palm Beach knew him,” adding, “I had a falling-out with him. I haven’t spoken to him in 15 years. I was not a fan of his, that I can tell you.”

What did the 2024 Epstein court documents reveal about Trump?

In 2017, Epstein accuser Virginia Giuffre settled her defamation lawsuit against Ghislaine Maxwell. Many documents in the case were initially sealed, but in 2023, federal judge Loretta Preska decided to release most of them. About 1,400 pages of records were released in five batches in January 2024.

Giuffre testified that Maxwell recruited her into Epstein’s sex-trafficking ring in 2000, when Giuffre was a 17-year-old spa attendant at Mar-a-Lago. Trump’s Florida resort is mentioned more than a dozen times in the court documents. However, Giuffre (who passed away in 2025) has said she had no relationship with Trump beyond being his employee. In a January 2016 deposition, Giuffre said she had heard about Trump visiting Epstein’s home but never saw him there herself. “I don’t think Donald Trump participated in anything,” she added.

Another alleged Epstein victim mentioned Trump in passing but did not accuse him of doing anything inappropriate. In a May 2016 deposition, Johanna Sjoberg said that while flying with Epstein on his plane, they made an unscheduled stop at a Trump casino in Atlantic City. “Jeffrey said, ‘Great, we’ll call up Trump and we’ll go to’ — I don’t recall the name of the casino, but — ‘we’ll go to the casino,’” Sjoberg said. When asked if she ever gave Trump a massage, Sjoberg said no.

The 2024 release also included emails Epstein victim Sarah Ransome sent to New York Post journalist Maureen Callahan in which she made explosive allegations against Trump and other famous men, including Bill Clinton and Prince Andrew. However, Ransome provided no proof and later recanted. No evidence supporting her claims about Trump appears in publicly available court records.

In a now-recanted October 2016 email, Ransome told Callahan that her friend was one of “many girls” Trump had sex with, claimed the friend regularly had sex with Trump at Epstein’s mansion, and shared other NSFW details:

Ransome said she had incriminating videos of Epstein’s associates and made outlandish claims like saying she’d reached out to the Russians for help and had been “approached, by Special Agents Forces Men sent directly by Hilary [sic] Clinton herself.”

In her final email to Callahan, Ransome said she wanted to “retract everything I have said to you and walk away from this.” Ransome told The New Yorker in 2019 that she’d never had any videos. In her 2021 memoir, Silenced No More, Ransome said she lied because she was scared that Epstein and Maxwell would kill her:

I also told her I had video evidence of public figures participating in Jeffrey and Ghislaine’s pedophile ring. I didn’t. I said I did because I was absolutely terrified that, once I went public with my story, Jeffrey and Ghislaine would find and kill me. I wanted to send them a message via the press: If you wage war on me, I will return fire by releasing my evidence. That would be my leverage, my way of protecting myself.

What did Trump say about the Epstein files when he was out of office?

In a June 2, 2024, Fox & Friends interview, Trump was asked if he would declassify various federal files if reelected. He quickly answered “yes” when asked about documents on 9/11, the JFK assassination, and Epstein — but then backtracked on the sex trafficker.

“I guess I would,” Trump said. “I think [Epstein] less so because you don’t know, you don’t want to affect people’s lives if it’s phony stuff in there, because it’s a lot of phony stuff with that whole world. But I think I would, or at least —”

Interviewer Rachel Campos-Duffy tried to get Trump back on topic, but he continued musing about the Epstein files.

“Yeah, I don’t know about Epstein so much as I do the others. Certainly about the way he died,” Trump replied. “It’d be interesting to find out what happened there because that was a weird situation and the cameras didn’t happen to be working, etc., etc. But, yeah, I’d go a long way toward that one.”

In an interview with podcaster Lex Fridman released September 3, 2024, Trump lightly praised Epstein when asked why he had so many powerful associates.

“He was a good salesman; he was, you know, a hailing, hearty type of guy,” Trump said. “He had some nice assets that he’d throw around, like islands.”

Trump did not commit to releasing more files on Epstein and his associates if reelected, but he said he’d “certainly take a look at it.”

“I’d be inclined to do the Epstein. I’d have no problem with it,” Trump added.

Did Elon Musk claim Trump is in the Epstein files?

Amid his messy June 5 public breakup with the president, the former DOGE chief dropped two posts, which were later deleted. The first said:

Mark this post for the future. The truth will come out.

To be clear, no publicly released evidence backs up Musk’s suggestion that the Epstein files contain incriminating information about Trump.

Did Trump order the release of the Epstein files?

On January 23, 2025, Trump signed an executive order calling for the release of the remaining classified documents on the assassinations of John F. Kennedy, Robert F. Kennedy, and Martin Luther King Jr. — but not Epstein.

Shortly after she was sworn in as attorney general, Pam Bondi said the Justice Department would soon release files related to the Epstein investigation. Bondi — who was facing pressure from both Democratic and Republican lawmakers to make Epstein’s “client list” public — told Fox News on February 21 that she was reviewing the files.

“It’s sitting on my desk right now to review,” she said. “That’s been a directive by President Trump.”

On February 27, Bondi and FBI director Kash Patel released binders of documents labeled “The Epstein Files: Phase 1” to a handful of far-right influencers. Following bipartisan complaints that the binder simply repackaged already-released Epstein materials, Bondi cast blame on the FBI and promised to release more documents.

However, in early July, the FBI and DOJ released a two-page memo that attempted to shut down the Epstein conspiracy theories. It said that following an “exhaustive review,” the agencies had concluded that there is nothing more to release, the Epstein “client list” doesn’t exist, and there isn’t any incriminating evidence that warrants an investigation into the pedophile’s powerful associates. They also released jail surveillance footage that purportedly confirms that Epstein killed himself, but it appeared to be missing one minute.

What has Trump said about Epstein’s death?

In an August 2023 interview, Tucker Carlson asked Trump if he believed Epstein killed himself in jail. “I don’t know,” said Trump, who seemed more interested in bashing his former attorney general Bill Barr. After more prodding from Carlson, Trump said he thought it was “possible” Epstein had been killed, but “I think he probably committed suicide.”

“Life with beautiful homes, beautiful everything, and all of a sudden he’s incarcerated and not doing well,” Trump said. “A lot of people think he was killed. He knew a lot on a lot of people.” Carlson confirmed he was among those who believe Epstein “was killed,” and Trump replied that “a case could be made either way.”

As Trump was pleading with his supporters to move on from the Epstein scandal in early July 2025, he repeatedly called the story “boring” and a “hoax” and said he couldn’t understand why anyone still cares.

In a July 12, 2025, Truth Social post, he mused, “What’s going on with my ‘boys’ and, in some cases, ‘gals?’”

“I don’t understand it, why they would be so interested,” Trump wrote. “He’s dead for a long time. He was never a big factor in terms of life. I don’t understand what the interest or the fascination is I really don’t. And the credible information has been given.”

This post has been updated throughout.

Trump-Epstein Relationship Timeline: What the Files Reveal

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