President Trump’s ties to Jeffrey Epstein are facing renewed scrutiny this week. Here’s the latest — plus a sharp take from his estranged niece, Mary Trump, on where his head might be.
Trump’s order on grand jury testimony
Late Thursday night, President Trump announced he’s pushing for the release of grand jury testimony related to Jeffrey Epstein. “Based on the ridiculous amount of publicity given to Jeffrey Epstein, I have asked Attorney General Pam Bondi to produce any and all pertinent Grand Jury testimony, subject to Court approval,” he wrote on Truth Social.
Minutes later, Bondi echoed the move on X: “We are ready to move the court tomorrow to unseal the grand jury transcripts.”
It remains unclear how much material is involved, which case the testimony pertains to, or whether a judge will agree to make it public.
A “bawdy” birthday letter
Trump’s post came after the Wall Street Journal reported that he’d signed a “bawdy” birthday letter to Jeffrey Epstein back in 2003.
The Journal says Epstein’s longtime associate, Ghislaine Maxwell, had gathered risqué notes from friends as part of his 50th birthday celebration — letters that Justice Department officials have since reviewed. One of them, according to the report, was apparently from Trump. The message was scrawled in the outline of a naked woman’s body and signed off with a cryptic line: “Happy Birthday — and may every day be another wonderful secret.”
Trump, speaking to the WSJ ahead of publication, strongly denied it was his. “This is not me. This is a fake thing,” he said. “I never wrote a picture in my life. I don’t draw pictures of women. It’s not my language. It’s not my words.” He also threatened to sue if the WSJ ran the story.
After it published, he doubled down — saying he plans to sue the WSJ, its parent company News Corp, and Rupert Murdoch, the conservative media mogul behind both.
Refusal to release a full account
Trump’s earlier decision to hold off on releasing the full Epstein investigation has drawn sharp criticism — including from members of his own base.
During his 2024 campaign, Trump suggested that the long-rumored documents known as the “Epstein files” — including what many believed to be a “client list” used by the convicted sex offender for blackmail — might soon be made public. But this week, the president signaled it was time to move on, following a Justice Department review that found no evidence that such a list existed and concluded that no further files would be released.
Backlash across the spectrum
Trump’s reversal sparked backlash across the political spectrum, with critics on both the left and right accusing the administration of burying the truth. Among them is Mary Trump, the president’s estranged niece, who publicly rebuked him for walking back his promise of transparency.
“Either [the Epstein investigation] does implicate people Donald doesn’t want implicated publicly, or it doesn’t implicate the people he’s been promising us for a decade,” Mary told Katie in an exclusive Substack interview earlier on Thursday. “Either way, he looks like a liar or he looks like he doesn’t know what he’s talking about,” she added.
Earlier this week, Trump stepped up his attacks on Republicans pushing for the release of more documents about the disgraced financier and sex offender. “Some stupid Republicans and foolish Republicans fall into the net, and so they try and do the Democrats’ work,” he told reporters in the Oval Office on Wednesday, repeating his claim that the controversy over the files is a Democrat-driven “hoax.”
But to Mary, that reaction comes as no surprise.
“He’s really lost control of the narrative here,” she said. “We’ve seen it before — someone pushes back against him, stands up to him, and suddenly they’re stupid, they’re liars, they don’t know what they’re talking about. But the difference now is that it’s his own people.”
Mary is keeping a close eye on Congress as Republican support builds for legislation that would direct the Department of Justice to release more files related to the late financier (an initiative I also spoke about with David Boies, attorney for the late Epstein accuser Virginia Giuffre).
“What I’m most interested in, because I think it could actually have an impact on how this plays out,” Mary said, “is what elected Republicans in Congress decide to do here. ‘Cause they are between a rock and a hard place.”
Click here to check out the rest of Katie’s interview with Mary Trump, in which she discusses reports that the president may fire Federal Reserve Chair Jerome Powell and shares her thoughts on his recent medical diagnosis, which has raised new questions about his health.
