Attorney General Pam Bondi told President Donald Trump in May that his name featured multiple times in a “truckload” of documents related to the late convicted sex offender Jeffrey Epstein, the Wall Street Journal reported Wednesday.
At a routine White House meeting, Bondi and her deputy revealed to the president that other high-profile figures were also named in files reviewed by the Department of Justice, according to the Journal citing senior Trump administration officials.
The details on many of hundreds of names mentioned, including Trump, was characterized by officials as “unverified hearsay,” the report said.
The latest revelation comes as Trump struggles to distance himself from the Epstein affair more than two weeks after Bondi’s department failed to release more documents on the tycoon, who killed himself in 2019 while awaiting trial for sex trafficking, as promised.
A two-page DOJ memo published July 7 stated there was no evidence of a “client list” of powerful figures Epstein could potentially blackmail.
“This is another fake news story, just like the previous story by The Wall Street Journal,” White House Communications Director Steven Cheung told the newspaper on Wednesday.
Trump’s friendship with Epstein, which later soured, is well documented. It’s long been reported that Trump was on Epstein’s flight logs.
Last week, The Journal published details of a lewd birthday letter sent by Trump to Epstein.
Trump dismissed the letter as a fake and sued reporters behind the story and the paper’s owner.
And it’s long been reported that Trump was on Epstein’s flight logs, so few would be surprised if his name emerged during DOJ probes.
Trump was even asked by a reporter last week whether Bondi had informed him that his name was in the documents.
The president replied, “No, no,” and said that his attorney general had “given us a very quick briefing,” before pivoting to suggest the controversy surrounding the files is a “hoax.”
The Trump administration’s efforts to dial down criticism from his supporters have included “reaching out” to Epstein accomplice Ghislaine Maxwell to find out what more she knows.
In 2022, the British socialite was sentenced to 20 years in prison for helping Epstein recruit underage girls for sexual abuse.
Deputy Attorney General Todd Blanche said Tuesday that a meeting could take place with Maxwell “in the coming days.”
Meanwhile, the House Oversight Committee announced a subpoena had been issued for Maxwell to testify at a deposition next month.
The latest Wall Street Journal story comes shortly after a federal judge in South Florida denied a DOJ request to unseal grand jury transcripts related to investigations into Epstein in 2005 and 2007.
The move was an attempt to show more transparency on the case, but the Trump administration is likely to have anticipated the outcome given that it’s rare for a judge to make grand jury transcripts public.
This is a developing story. Please check back for updates.
This article originally appeared on HuffPost.