Jeffrey Epstein attended Donald Trump's 1993 wedding, new photos reveal
In one photo, the disgraced financier is seen walking through the Plaza Hotel. Another shows him grinning in the background of a group photo featuring wedding guests Alison Stern, Robin Leach, Cecilia Nord and Howard Stern.
In a separate image, also from 1993, Epstein is seen standing with Mr Trump and his two children, Eric and Ivanka Trump, at the opening of the Harley Davidson Cafe in New York.
Footage also shows Mr Trump and Epstein, who died in federal custody in 2019, laughing and chatting together before a 1999 Victoria's Secret lingerie fashion show in New York.
The new images and footage were captured before Epstein's wrongdoing came to light. Their release comes as the US president scrambles to distance himself from Epstein, claiming he is facing a 'witch hunt' amid mounting pressure for him to order the release of secret Epstein files.
In a brief call with CNN on Tuesday, Mr Trump, when asked about the wedding photos, responded: 'You've got to be kidding me,' before repeatedly calling the news network 'fake news' and hanging up the phone.
Steven Cheung, the White House communications director, called the photos 'nothing more than out-of-context frame grabs of innocuous videos and pictures of widely attended events to disgustingly infer something nefarious'.
He added: 'The fact is that the president kicked him out of his club for being a creep. This is nothing more than a continuation of the fake news stories concocted by the Democrats and the liberal media.'
The comments followed a recent decision by the US justice department not to release secret files related to the deceased sex trafficker, days after The Wall Street Journal reported that Mr Trump sent Epstein a salacious birthday greeting in 2003 in which he expressed close friendship.
In what is shaping up to be the biggest crisis of his presidency, Mr Trump's refusal to release all the information the US government holds on the case has stirred up furious backlash among even some of his most loyal supporters.
Republican Marjorie Taylor Greene, a key Trump ally who has condemned the White House over this issue, said 'the call volume on Epstein' to her offices 'has almost been 100pc'.
Meanwhile, JD Vance, Mr Trump's vice-president, is reported to be boasting that he knows the contents of the Epstein files to dinner guests.
During an appearance on a podcast, comedian Tim Dillon said he had dinner with Mr Vance 'last week' and claimed that the vice-president spoke about the case.
Mr Dillon said: '[Attorney General Pam] Bondi said we have 10,000 hours of video. I had dinner last week with the vice-president. He [JD Vance] told me that that was commercial pornography, they do not have videos of any powerful person in a compromising position. That's the party line that they're going with?'
'If that's the case, why would Pam Bondi call it evidence? She's not an idiot,' Mr Dillon added.
Mr Trump sought to deflect the heat by baselessly accusing former president Barack Obama of 'treason' for his alleged attempts to undermine Mr Trump's first election victory.
'The witch hunt you should be talking about is that they caught president Obama absolutely cold,' he said. 'Whether it's right or wrong, it's time to go after people'.
In a rare retort from the former president, a spokesman for Mr Obama called Trump's attack a 'weak attempt at distraction'.
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