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FRESH disclosures from recently released Justice Department files have cast renewed attention on President Donald Trump’s past association with convicted sex offender Jeffrey Epstein, even as Trump’s commerce secretary, Howard Lutnick, came under intense scrutiny from lawmakers over his own links to the financier.
Reuters, on Wednesday, reported that the developments underline how the Epstein scandal continues to pose a political challenge for the Trump administration, weeks after the Justice Department released millions of Epstein-related documents in response to a bipartisan congressional mandate.
The disclosures have also had international repercussions, revealing new details about Epstein’s connections across politics, finance, business and academia.
Among the documents is a summary of a 2019 FBI interview with Michael Reiter, the former police chief of Palm Beach, Florida, which describes a phone call from Trump in July 2006, shortly after Epstein’s first sex crime charges became public.
According to the interview summary, Trump told Reiter: “Thank goodness you’re stopping him, everyone has known he’s been doing this.”
The document further states that Trump said people in New York were aware of Epstein’s behaviour and that his associate, Ghislaine Maxwell, was “evil”. Trump also told Reiter that he had once been around Epstein when teenagers were present and that he “got the hell out of there”.
Reiter, who retired in 2009, confirmed the details of the FBI interview to the Miami Herald, which first reported on the document.
Asked about the reported call, the Justice Department said: “We are not aware of any corroborating evidence that the president contacted law enforcement 20 years ago.”
Trump has previously acknowledged that he was friends with Epstein for several years before the two fell out prior to Epstein’s first arrest. The president has repeatedly said he was unaware of Epstein’s criminal conduct.
White House press secretary Karoline Leavitt said on Tuesday that Trump had been “honest and transparent” about ending his association with Epstein.
“It was a phone call that may or may not have happened in 2006,” she said. “I don’t know the answer to that question.”
The controversy unfolded as Commerce Secretary Howard Lutnick appeared before a Senate hearing, where he was questioned sharply about his own past interactions with Epstein. Lutnick sought to minimise the relationship, telling senators that he had “barely had anything to do with” the financier.
Justice Department files released this week included emails suggesting that Lutnick visited Epstein’s private Caribbean island for lunch in 2012, seven years after he had previously claimed to have severed all ties. The disclosures have prompted calls for his resignation from both Republican and Democratic lawmakers.
Lutnick told senators that he had met Epstein only three times over a 14-year period, and said the 2012 lunch, which he said included his family, took place simply because he was travelling by boat nearby.
“I know and my wife knows that I have done absolutely nothing wrong in any possible regard,” Lutnick said.
The emails, however, appear to contradict Lutnick’s earlier statements that he had vowed never to see Epstein again after a 2005 incident in which Epstein, then his neighbour, showed him a massage table and made a sexually suggestive remark.
Republican Representative Tom Massie said on CNN on Sunday that Lutnick should “make life easier on the president, frankly, and just resign.”
Despite the pressure, Leavitt said Trump “fully supports” Lutnick.
The renewed focus on Epstein also prompted legislative action on Capitol Hill. Congressional Democrats on Tuesday introduced a bill designed to make it easier for adult survivors of sex trafficking to sue their abusers, even decades after the abuse occurred.
Senate Democratic Leader Chuck Schumer and Representative Teresa Leger Fernandez announced the proposal alongside Epstein survivors and the family of Virginia Giuffre, one of Epstein’s most prominent accusers, who died by suicide last year. The bill, known as Virginia’s Law, is named in her honour.
Epstein was found dead in a New York jail cell in 2019 while awaiting trial. His death was officially ruled a suicide, but it has fuelled years of conspiracy theories, some of which Trump himself amplified to supporters during his 2024 presidential campaign.
Maxwell, who is serving a 20-year prison sentence for her role in facilitating Epstein’s abuse of teenage girls, appeared before the US House oversight committee on Monday but declined to answer questions during her deposition. - February 11, 2026