What you need to know about Trump, Epstein and the MAGA fracture

Reuters

6 days ago

July 29 (Reuters) - U.S. President Donald Trump is facing a political furor over his administration's handling of unreleased files from Jeffrey Epstein's criminal case.
Here are some facts about Epstein and the current fracture between Trump and his supporters in the conservative MAGA movement:
The Brooklyn-born Epstein, a former high school math teacher who later founded consulting and financial management firms, cultivated the rich and famous.
He was known for socializing with politicians and royalty.
Trump knew Epstein socially in the 1990s and early 2000s. During the 2021 trial of Epstein associate Ghislaine Maxwell, the financier's longtime pilot, Lawrence Visoski, testified that Trump flew on Epstein's private plane multiple times.
Flight logs presented as evidence at the trial showed Trump's name on a list of passengers on the plane at least six times in 1993 and 1994. Trump has not been accused of wrongdoing.
In a January 9, 2024, social media post, opens new tab, Trump wrote, "I was never on Epstein's Plane."
Maxwell was convicted of sex trafficking and sentenced to 20 years in prison. She lost an appeal and is asking the U.S. Supreme Court to consider overturning her conviction.
In 2008, Epstein served 13 months in jail and pleaded guilty to a Florida state felony prostitution charge.
In July 2019, the Justice Department charged Epstein with sex trafficking minors, including sexually exploiting and abusing dozens of girls, in New York and Florida between 2002 and 2005. He pleaded not guilty.
Epstein died by suicide on August 10, 2019, at age 66 in a Manhattan jail cell, an autopsy concluded. He was never tried on the 2019 charges.
Epstein's friendships with the political, business, and cultural elite spurred conspiracy theories, including that other prominent people were involved in Epstein's alleged sex trafficking and that his death was not a suicide.
In several interviews, Trump left open the possibility that Epstein may not have died by suicide. During the 2024 presidential campaign, when a Fox News reporter asked Trump whether he would "declassify the Epstein files" if elected, Trump said, "Yeah, yeah, I would."
In February, Fox News asked Attorney General Pam Bondi whether the Justice Department would be releasing what a reporter called a list of Epstein's clients. Bondi said, "It's sitting on my desk right now to review."
Later that month, in what it called the "first phase of declassified files," the Justice Department released 200 pages of mostly already-public material, including the flight logs. Bondi said the office would soon release the remaining documents.
On July 7, the Justice Department published a memo concluding that Epstein had killed himself and said there was "no incriminating client list."
That prompted a rare fracture among Trump's supporters, who have said the federal government is concealing records to protect wealthy and influential people.
Trying to contain the fallout, Trump defended Bondi and accused his supporters in a Truth Social post of falling for a hoax.
With backlash from his base not abating, Trump on July 17 requested that Bondi ask a federal judge to unseal grand jury transcripts from Epstein's case.
Two federal judges in Manhattan are weighing the Justice Department's requests to unseal transcripts from the grand juries that indicted Epstein and Maxwell.
Todd Blanche, the No. 2 official in the Justice Department, met with Maxwell for two days to see if she had information about others who may have been involved in Epstein's crimes.