Attorney general told Trump his name appeared in Epstein files

Attorney General Pam Bondi during a Cabinet meeting at the White House, in Washington, July 8, 2025. Bondi informed President Trump in the spring that his name appeared in the Jeffrey Epstein files, according to three people with knowledge of the exchange. (Doug Mills/The New York Times)

By Maggie Haberman and Glenn Thrush

Attorney General Pam Bondi informed President Donald Trump in the spring that his name appeared in the Jeffrey Epstein files, according to three people with knowledge of the exchange.

The disclosure came as part of a broader briefing on the reexamination of the case by FBI agents and prosecutors. It was made by Bondi during a meeting that also included the deputy attorney general, Todd Blanche, and covered a variety of topics. Bondi frequently meets with Trump to brief him on various matters, officials said.

Bondi and Blanche informed the president that his name, as well as those of other high-profile figures, came up in their reexamination of documents connected to the case that had not previously been made public. Trump, a friend of the disgraced financier, has already appeared in documents related to the investigation. Appearing at the White House in February, Bondi distributed a series of binders about the Epstein files with the phone numbers of the president’s former wife and his daughter in them.

“As part of our routine briefing, we made the president aware of the findings,” Bondi and Blanche wrote in a statement in response to questions about the briefing. “Nothing in the files warranted further investigation or prosecution.”

Steven Cheung, the White House communications director, would not address questions about the briefing, but called any suggestion that Trump was engaged in wrongdoing related to Epstein “fake news” and said Trump ejected Epstein from his club, Mar-a-Lago, for “being a creep.”

Department officials have regularly informed some White House officials about developments in the inquiry. Such communications are permissible under the law.

The conversation was reported earlier by The Wall Street Journal.

One person close to Trump, who spoke only on the condition of anonymity, said that White House officials were not concerned about the latest disclosures given that Trump’s name appeared in the first round of information that Bondi released.