An image of US President Donald Trump and Jeffrey Epstein, along with the words \u201cPresident Trump: Release All the Epstein Files\u201d, is projected onto the US Department of Commerce headquarters in Washington, DC, on July 18, 2025. \u2014 AFP pic<\/p>\n\n\n\n
WASHINGTON, July 21 \u2014 Donald Trump\u2019s past ties with Jeffrey Epstein are under scrutiny after the US president slammed a Wall Street Journal report that he sent a lewd letter to the infamous sex offender as \u201cfake news.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n
AFP looks at the pair\u2019s relationship as the Trump administration also faces demands to release all government files on Epstein\u2019s alleged crimes and his death.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Parties and private jets<\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n Trump, then a property mogul and self-styled playboy, appears to have known Epstein, a wealthy money manager, since the 1990s.<\/p>\n\n\n\n They partied together in 1992 with NFL cheerleaders at Trump\u2019s Mar-a-Lago resort in Florida, according to footage from NBC News, which shows the pair talking and laughing.<\/p>\n\n\n\n The same year, Epstein was Trump\u2019s only guest at a \u201ccalendar girl\u201d competition he hosted involving more than two dozen young women, The New York Times reported.<\/p>\n\n\n\n In a display of their close ties, Trump flew on Epstein\u2019s private jet at least seven times during the 1990s, according to flight logs presented in court and cited by US media.<\/p>\n\n\n\n He has denied this, and in 2024 said he was \u201cnever on Epstein\u2019s plane.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n In 1993, according to The New York Times, Trump allegedly groped swimsuit model Stacey Williams after Epstein introduced them at Trump Tower \u2013 a claim the president has refuted.<\/p>\n\n\n\n Separate from his links to Epstein, Trump has been accused of sexual misconduct by around 20 women.<\/p>\n\n\n\n In 2023, he was found liable of sexually abusing and defaming American journalist E. Jean Carroll in a civil trial.<\/p>\n\n\n\n \u2018Terrific guy\u2019<\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n Virginia Giuffre, one of Epstein\u2019s main accusers who died by suicide this year, said she was recruited into his alleged sex-trafficking network aged 17 while working at Trump\u2019s Mar-a-Lago club in 2000.<\/p>\n\n\n\n Giuffre claimed she was approached there by Ghislaine Maxwell, who was jailed in 2022 for helping Epstein sexually abuse girls.<\/p>\n\n\n\n Trump seemed to be on good terms with Epstein during this time, praising him as a \u201cterrific guy\u201d in a 2002 New York Magazine profile.<\/p>\n\n\n\n \u201cHe\u2019s 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,\u201d Trump said.<\/p>\n\n\n\n In 2003, according to a Wall Street Journal report, Trump penned a letter for Epstein\u2019s 50th birthday featuring a drawing of a naked woman, with his signature \u201cDonald\u201d mimicking pubic hair.<\/p>\n\n\n\n His apparent message \u2013 Trump dismissed the letter as a \u201cfake thing\u201d \u2013 read: \u201cHappy Birthday \u2013 and may every day be another wonderful secret.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n \u2018I wasn\u2019t a fan\u2019<\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n The pair reportedly had a rupture in 2004 as they competed to buy a waterfront property in Florida, which Trump eventually snagged.<\/p>\n\n\n\n The two men were hardly seen together in public from that point. Trump would later say in 2019 that they had a \u201cfalling out\u201d and hadn\u2019t spoken in 15 years.<\/p>\n\n\n\n Shortly after the property auction, police launched a probe that saw Epstein jailed in 2008 for 13 months for soliciting an underage prostitute.<\/p>\n\n\n\n He was arrested again in 2019 after he was accused of trafficking girls as young as 14 and engaging in sexual acts with them.<\/p>\n\n\n\n Trump, then serving his first term as president, sought to distance himself from his old friend.<\/p>\n\n\n\n \u201cI wasn\u2019t a fan,\u201d he told reporters when the charges were revealed.<\/p>\n\n\n\n In 2019, Epstein was found hanging dead in his prison cell awaiting trial. Authorities said he died by suicide.<\/p>\n\n\n\n Since then, Trump has latched onto and fueled conspiracy theories that global elites including former president Bill Clinton were involved in Epstein\u2019s crimes or death.<\/p>\n\n\n\n Those same theories now threaten to destabilise Trump\u2019s administration, despite his attempts to dismiss the saga as a \u201choax\u201d created by political adversaries. \u2014 AFP<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" An image of US President Donald Trump and Jeffrey Epstein, along with the words \u201cPresident Trump: Release All the Epstein Files\u201d, is projected onto the US Department of Commerce headquarters in Washington, DC, on July 18, 2025. \u2014 AFP pic WASHINGTON, July 21 \u2014 Donald Trump\u2019s past ties with Jeffrey Epstein are under scrutiny after […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":2053,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[7,2,10],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-2052","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-articles","category-international-news","category-news"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/myanmarmuslim.news\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2052","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/myanmarmuslim.news\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/myanmarmuslim.news\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/myanmarmuslim.news\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/myanmarmuslim.news\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=2052"}],"version-history":[{"count":2,"href":"https:\/\/myanmarmuslim.news\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2052\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":2055,"href":"https:\/\/myanmarmuslim.news\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2052\/revisions\/2055"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/myanmarmuslim.news\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/2053"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/myanmarmuslim.news\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=2052"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/myanmarmuslim.news\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=2052"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/myanmarmuslim.news\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=2052"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}