“You know who’s not on the Epstein list? My father… because if he was, it would have leaked in about half a second!!!! That’s a fact!”
So goes a post on X made by Donald Trump Jr., the son of former United States President Donald Trump, on June 16, 2024.
But here is the thing: Donald Trump was among the names mentioned in relation to the so-called ‘Epstein list’. That much has been publicly available information for months.
What is ‘The Epstein List’?
In early January of this year, a judge unsealed around 950 pages of court documents from a 2015 lawsuit against the convicted child sex trafficker Ghislaine Maxwell.
The documents named around 150 associates of American financier and registered sex offender Jeffrey Epstein, who died in prison while awaiting trial, accused of a vast sex-trafficking conspiracy involving minors.
The ‘list,’ a designation Vox describes as misleading, received widespread media and public attention, with articles from publications big and small gathering the most salacious and famous names, now tied to one of the most toxic names in American culture.
However, the documents did not really contain any big revelations. It was not a complete list of people accused of being clients or co-conspirators of Epstein.
Rather, it was a vast collection of documents such as court filings, emails, government documents, and so forth which did not only name associates, friends, and acquaintances of Epstein’s, but also police officers, victims, and possible witnesses.
Ultimately, being named in the documents does not equal being accused of any wrongdoing.
But What About Trump?
One significant part of the unsealed documents, however, was the testimony of alleged victim Johanna Sjoberg.
In Sjoberg’s testimony she describes flying with Epstein to visit Trump at one of his casinos in 2001. The testimony did not accuse the former president of any wrongdoing.
That Trump was friendly with Epstein, however, is hardly new information.
In 2021, when flight logs to Epstein’s private jet were released, they revealed that Trump had used the jet several times in the 1990s.
In 2002, Trump spoke in no uncertain terms about his then opinion of Epstein, saying according to New York magazine,
“I’ve known Jeff for fifteen 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.”
Ultimately, knowing Epstein, befriending him, or even sharing his love of “beautiful women” is not a proof of guilt, nor even an accusation of anything. That is worth mentioning.
But to the degree that there can even be said to exist an ‘Epstein list,’ Donald Trump was most definitely on it.
