By Tony Bruce & Don Terry | Wednesday, August 13, 2025 | 8 min read
Donald Trump and Jeffrey Epstein spent years moving through the same glittering world of wealth and influence, brushing shoulders at exclusive gatherings, riding in the same private jets, and mingling with a roster of high-profile friends, including Ghislaine Maxwell. For a long time, it was a connection neither man seemed to hide. But in the wake of Epstein’s downfall and the continued public outrage over his crimes, Trump and his allies have shifted into defensive mode, downplaying their history while trying to redirect the spotlight toward Bill Clinton.
The plan doesn’t seem to be working the way Trump’s team hoped. Clinton, unlike Trump, hasn’t tried to deny flying on Epstein’s jet or knowing him, but making Clinton the centerpiece of the conversation is backfiring. The effort has only been amplified by figures like Ghislaine Maxwell and Rep. Comer, whose attempts to frame Clinton as the “prime suspect” in Epstein’s saga seem to have stirred up more curiosity than deflection.
Among some Republicans—especially those who have long dabbled in conspiracy-laced theories—the mention of Clinton has become a rallying cry to dig deeper. Even within the MAGA base, there’s a growing impatience with political maneuvering and a sharper insistence on getting to the bottom of the matter. The push to unseal every last one of Epstein’s files isn’t fading into the background—it’s growing louder, with demands for full disclosure echoing from voices that once might have stayed quiet.
Trump’s link to Epstein wasn’t fleeting or incidental. It stretched over nearly twenty years, with a paper trail and a gallery of images that make it hard to dismiss. Journalists and investigators have dug deep, piecing together a timeline that shows repeated contact, mutual social events, and shared travel. Andrew Kaczynski, whose research has been cited widely, found multiple accounts describing Trump and Epstein as “best friends.” Epstein himself once boasted he had been Trump’s “closest friend for ten years.” It wasn’t an offhand acquaintance—it was a long-standing association that’s difficult to square with Trump’s current efforts to distance himself.
The official records say a lot. Flight logs from the mid-1990s show Trump on Epstein’s jet at least eight times between 1993 and 1997, with Maxwell often aboard as well. In 1993 alone—coincidentally the year Epstein attended Trump’s wedding to Marla Maples—they took four flights together between Palm Beach and New York. One of those trips included Trump’s then-wife, his young daughter Tiffany, and their nanny. In 1995, he and his son Eric once again joined Epstein and Maxwell for travel. This wasn’t the kind of connection that happens by chance; it had a regularity to it.
Trump’s own public words over the years also contradict his later claims of distance. In 2002, speaking to New York Magazine, he called Epstein a “terrific guy” who enjoyed “beautiful women, many of them on the younger side.” Two years later, in his book How to Get Rich, Trump referred to him casually as “The Mysterious Jeffrey” and shared a story about Epstein unexpectedly calling him. Even in 2004, when Epstein’s name was drawing increasing scrutiny from law enforcement, Trump was still making contact, leaving messages at Epstein’s Palm Beach estate. At that time, the two were even competing for a property in the same neighborhood—a rivalry that didn’t seem to cancel their communications.
Photographs from the era make the bond even more visible. There’s the widely circulated 1992 image showing Donald Trump and Jeffrey Epstein at a party, dancing alongside models, with Maxwell standing nearby. Epstein was present at Trump’s wedding. They appeared together at Victoria’s Secret fashion shows and other high-society events, moving in circles that overlapped heavily. By the turn of the millennium, their company had become even more exclusive. One gathering at Mar-a-Lago featured not just Trump, Epstein, and Maxwell, but Britain’s Prince Andrew—an image that would take on a much darker significance in hindsight.
When pressed about this shared past, Trump’s current team has stuck to a simple defense: the claim that Trump expelled Epstein from Mar-a-Lago for inappropriate behavior. White House spokesperson Steven Cheung reiterated this version, calling Epstein “a creep” and insisting Trump cut him off. But the timeline leaves gaps. The records and public comments show contact long after rumors about Epstein’s conduct had begun to circulate. If there truly was a moral break, it seems to have come far later than suggested.
Ironically, it’s not just Donald Trump’s critics who keep the story alive—it’s also members of his own party. The name Alex Acosta, the former prosecutor who struck Epstein’s infamous 2008 plea deal, comes up often. Acosta later became Trump’s Labor Secretary, linking the administration directly to one of the most controversial moments in Jeffrey Epstein’s legal saga. Some Republican lawmakers are now openly talking about subpoenaing Acosta to answer for that deal. Representative Anna Paulina Luna has said bringing him in to testify is “not off the table.” Even former Vice President Mike Pence has weighed in, drawing the public’s gaze back toward a case Trump might prefer to forget.
The timing is awkward for Trump, who is trying to steer political conversations toward other priorities, including his push to federalize Washington, D.C.’s police force. But instead of controlling the narrative, he’s finding the Epstein matter resurfacing again and again, especially when his allies attempt to deflect attention toward Clinton. In politics, the more you insist something isn’t a problem, the more people start wondering why you’re talking about it so much. That’s exactly what’s happening here.
The weight of evidence—flight logs, photographs, and Trump’s own documented statements—doesn’t disappear just because someone denies it. For those watching closely, the question isn’t whether Donald Trump and Jeffrey Epstein had a close relationship. That’s already well-established. The real mystery is why it has been so persistently downplayed, rephrased, or sidestepped for so many years. Like many political scandals, the attempt to rewrite history often reveals as much as the history itself. And in this case, the public’s appetite for answers—across the political spectrum—only grows sharper with time.
Now, there’s a new twist. According to Katherine Kamali, who shared time behind bars with Ghislaine Maxwell at a federal prison in Tallahassee, Maxwell bragged about having “dirt” on Trump. Kamali claims Maxwell openly told other inmates that this information could be her ticket to a pardon from President Biden.
Kamali recalls Maxwell speaking about her years in Trump’s orbit, from the late 1980s through the early 2000s, hinting that she knew things that could cause serious damage. These claims echo a 1997 Sunday Mirror article—published when Maxwell’s father owned the paper—that portrayed her as a “madam” who supplied Trump with young women.
If Kamali’s account is true, Biden’s Justice Department wasn’t interested in making deals with a convicted sex trafficker. But Trump’s critics allege he took a very different approach—offering Maxwell “queen for a day” immunity, moving her to a minimum-security facility in Texas, and dangling the promise of a pardon in exchange for her silence. They argue this was all part of a larger plan to keep the so-called Epstein files—hundreds of gigabytes of potentially explosive material—locked away from public view.
Meanwhile, House Oversight Chair James Comer has directed subpoenas at Bill and Hillary Clinton, James Comey, and others, but notably not at Alex Acosta, the former prosecutor behind Epstein’s infamous 2008 plea deal who later served in Trump’s cabinet. Comer insists Clinton is the “prime suspect” for questioning about Epstein Island, but to many, this looks like a political diversion meant to steer attention away from Trump’s own ties.
Maxwell’s alleged prison confessions are now fueling renewed calls—even from within Trump’s MAGA base—to unseal every single Epstein file. And if the secrets she hinted at are real, Trump’s name could soon be back in the headlines, not for campaign rallies or political wins, but for all the wrong reasons.
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