Photo released from the Jeffrey Epstein files shows Donald Trump with multiple women. Redactions were done by the Democrats on the House Oversight Committee. Date and context is unclear.
Source: Democrats on the House Oversight Committee.
Nearly 100,000 photos obtained by House Democrats from the estate of notorious sex predator Jeffrey Epstein include images of President Donald Trump, former President Bill Clinton, Microsoft founder Bill Gates, film director Woody Allen, and former Trump White House advisor Steve Bannon and others in social settings.
Democrats on the House Oversight and Government Reform Committee, as they made 19 of those photos public, urged the Department of Justice to release investigative files it has related to Epstein ahead of the Dec. 19 deadline to do so to comply with a newly passed law.
One image among a batch of photos released Friday morning shows Trump standing in the middle of a row of six women, whose faces were covered over by the Democrats before release. Some of the women are wearing Hawaiian leis around their necks.
Trump is shown in another photo standing behind Epstein at what appears to be a social event. A third photo shows Trump sitting next to a woman, whose face is blacked out, on what appears to be a plane.
Trump was a longtime friend of Epstein before the two men had a falling out sometime in the early 2000s. He has not been accused of any wrongdoing in connection with Epstein, and has denied knowledge of Epstein’s abuse of girls and women while they were friends.
“Well, I haven’t seen it, but I mean, everybody knew this man,” Trump said at the White House on Friday evening when asked about the photos of him and others being released.
“He was all over Palm Beach. He has photos with everybody. I mean, almost there are hundreds and hundreds of people that have photos with him,” Trump said.
“So that’s no big deal. I know nothing about it.”
White House spokeswoman Abigail Jackson, in a statement to CNBC, accused House Democrats of “selectively releasing cherry-picked photos with random redactions to try and create a false narrative.”
Jackson called the Democrats’ focus on the president’s connection to Epstein a “hoax,” and argued that the Trump administration “has done more for Epstein’s victims than Democrats ever have” by releasing documents and calling for transparency.
Photo from the Jeffrey Epstein files released by the Democrats on the House Oversight Committee showing Bill Clinton, Ghislaine Maxwell and Jeffrey Epstein with two unknown people. Blurred individuals done by Versant Media. Date and context unclear.
Clinton is shown in one photo standing with Epstein, his now-convicted procurer Ghislaine Maxwell, and another man and woman. The photo has Clinton’s signature on it.
Other photos show former Treasury Secretary Larry Summers, Andrew Mountbatten-Windsor, who was previously known as Prince Andrew of Britain, and Epstein’s one-time lawyer Alan Dershowitz.
The dates, locations and context of the photos were not revealed as part of the release Friday.
CNBC is reaching out to the people identified in the photos, all of whom have denied wrongdoing. This story will be updated with their responses.
“This latest production contains over 95,000 photos, including images of the wealthy and powerful men who spent time with Jeffrey Epstein,” a statement from Democrats on the Oversight Committee said.
Photo from the Jeffrey Epstein files released by the Democrats on the House Oversight Committee shows Donald Trump with an unknown woman. Redaction from the Democrats on the House Oversight Committee. Date and Context is unclear.
“Images also include thousands of photographs of women and Epstein properties,” the statement said. “Committee Democrats are reviewing the full set of photos and will continue to release photos to the public in the days and weeks ahead. Committee Democrats are committed to protecting the identities of the survivors.”
Rep. Robert Garcia of California, the ranking Democrat on the committee, in a statement said, “It is time to end this White House cover-up and bring justice to the survivors of Jeffrey Epstein and his powerful friends.”
“These disturbing photos raise even more questions about Epstein and his relationships with some of the most powerful men in the world. We will not rest until the American people get the truth. The Department of Justice must release all the files, NOW.”
Photo from the Jeffrey Epstein files released by the Democrats on the House Oversight Committee showing Steve Bannon and Jeffrey Epstein. Date and Context is unclear.
Source: Democrats on the House Oversight Committee
Trump and top law enforcement officials in his administration for months resisted the idea of releasing investigative files related to Epstein and Maxwell before Congress in November overwhelmingly passed a law mandating their release by the Department of Justice.
Those files, which are separate from the ones released by the Democrats on Friday, have yet to be made publicly available.
Garcia said the committee received the new batch of photos from Epstein’s estate on Thursday night.
He said that the committee’s Democrats have reviewed “maybe about 25,000 of [the photos] so far.”
“There’s an enormous amount of photos we have not gone through,” Garcia said. “It will take days and weeks to ensure that we got those photos and that a redaction is done in the appropriate way.”
“Obviously there are photos of powerful men, and folks that we want to have an opportunity to speak with and ask questions of,” Garcia said.
He noted that the photos were in the estate’s possession, and that Epstein took some of them himself, while others may have been sent to him.
“Some of the other photos that we did not put out today are incredibly disturbing,” Garcia added.
Republicans on the Oversight Committee, in their own statement, said, “Once again, Oversight Democrats are chasing headlines by releasing a handful of selectively censored and cherry-picked photos from the Epstein Estate.”
“Democrats’ hoax against President Trump has been completely debunked. Nothing in the documents we’ve received shows any wrongdoing,” the Republicans said. “Ranking Member Robert Garcia and Oversight Democrats should be ashamed of this disgusting behavior of putting politics above justice for the survivors.”
Epstein died from a jailhouse suicide in August 2019, weeks after he was arrested on child sex trafficking charges filed by the DOJ during Trump’s first term in office.
Maxwell is serving a 20-year federal prison sentence for her 2021 conviction of crimes related to procuring underage girls to be sexually abused by Epstein.
Photo from the Jeffrey Epstein files released by the Democrats on the House Oversight Committee showing Jeffrey Epstein with Alan Dershowitz. Date and Context is unclear.
Source: Democrats on the House Oversight Committee
Angel Urena, a spokesperson for Clinton, had said in a July 2019 statement, “President Clinton knows nothing about the terrible crimes Jeffrey Epstein pleaded guilty to in Florida some years ago, or those with which he has been recently charged in New York.”
“In 2002 and 2003, President Clinton took a total of four trips on Jeffrey Epstein’s airplane: one to Europe, one to Asia, and two to Africa, which included stops in connection with the work of the Clinton Foundation. Staff, supporters of the Foundation, and his Secret Service detail traveled on every leg of every trip,” Urena said.
“He had one meeting with Epstein in his Harlem office in 2002, and around the same time made one brief visit to Epstein’s New York apartment with a staff member and his security detail. He’s not spoken to Epstein in well over a decade, and has never been to Little St. James Island, Epstein’s ranch in New Mexico, or his residence in Florida.”
— Additional reporting by CNBC’s Kevin Breuninger