The Justice Department looked into sexual misconduct allegations against President Donald Trump in connection with sex offender Jeffrey Epstein but did not find credible information to merit further investigation, Todd Blanche, the deputy attorney general, said Sunday.

Blanche’s comments, which he made on CNN’s “State of the Union,” came less than 48 hours after the Trump administration released about 3 million pages of documents collected by the Justice Department as part of its yearslong investigation into Epstein, who died in 2019.

The controversy over Epstein has dogged Trump for the past year. After Trump’s allies vowed on the 2024 campaign trail to release the Epstein files, his administration rapidly backtracked. Trump’s resistance to releasing the government’s files fueled speculation that they contained damaging information about him or his allies.

The files are peppered with references to Trump, who had been a close friend of Epstein’s until the early 2000s. While Trump has repeatedly downplayed the relationship, the two men bonded over their pursuit of young women. Trump has denied any wrongdoing in connection to Epstein.

Using a proprietary search tool, The New York Times identified more than 5,300 files containing more than 38,000 references to Trump, his wife, his Mar-a-Lago club in Florida, and other related words and phrases in the latest batch of emails, government files, videos and other records released by the Justice Department. Previous installments of the Epstein files, which the department released late last year, included another 130 files with Trump-related references.

Many of the documents released Friday that mention Trump are news articles and other publicly available materials that had landed in Epstein’s email inbox. None of those files include any direct communication between Trump and Epstein. (Few of the files date back as far as the early 2000s, when the two men were friends.)

Here is what our review of the files has found so far.

Trump Is Named in Unverified Tips Received by the FBI

Trump is one of half a dozen prominent men about whom the agency’s files includes “salacious information,” according to an email an FBI official wrote to a colleague last year.

Some of that information appears to be in the form of more than a dozen tips submitted through the FBI’s National Threat Operations Center in West Virginia. Some of the tips include accusations of sexual abuse by Trump and Epstein. FBI officials last summer compiled the tips into a summary, which was among the files released Friday.

The FBI summary does not include corroborating information, and the Times is not describing the details of the unverified claims. The names of some of the tipsters in the document have not been redacted.

The newly released files also include notes and transcripts of interviews that federal investigators conducted with Epstein’s victims, some of whom describe interactions with Trump.

For instance, handwritten notes from one interview in September 2019 — about a month after Epstein died by suicide in a Manhattan jail — say that a victim, whose name has been redacted, recalled being transported in a dark green car to Mar-a-Lago to meet Trump.

“This is a good one, huh?” the victim recalls Epstein saying to Trump. The notes do not suggest misconduct by Trump.

In another file, Juan Alessi, who worked for Epstein, is reported to have told investigators that Trump — along with other well-known individuals — had visited Epstein’s home.

A White House spokesperson declined to comment on questions about specific documents and referred to Trump’s comments to reporters on Saturday, when he claimed that the files “absolved me” of wrongdoing.

Some of the Documents Confirm Previous Reports About Epstein and Trump

Investigators, lawyers, journalists and others have spent years trying to understand the extent of Epstein’s relationship with powerful men, including Trump, and a huge volume of information is already in the public domain. Many of the Trump-related files that the Times reviewed buttress or recycle those materials.

Some of the new files are duplicates of emails and other records that the Justice Department or the House Oversight Committee released late last year. Those files show that long after Trump and Epstein’s relationship ended, Epstein remained intensely focused on his former friend, which included looking for ways to leverage Trump’s political rise for his own purposes.

Some newly released files add to the sense that Epstein was keeping close tabs on the president. In 2018, for example, Epstein’s accountant emailed him a link to a Reuters article about congressional investigations into Trump and Deutsche Bank, which for years was the president’s primary lender. At the time of the email, Deutsche Bank was also Epstein’s main bank.

There are also scattered references to the compendium of letters that was presented to Epstein on his 50th birthday in 2003. In one newly released email, from late 2002, an unidentified sender provides an update on the plans for the birthday book, apparently noting that submissions from Trump and others have not yet arrived.

The birthday book, which was released by a congressional committee last summer, ultimately included a bawdy entry apparently signed by Trump. Trump has denied writing it and has sued The Wall Street Journal for linking him to it.

The Files Include Emails From a Woman Named Melania

In 2002, a woman named Melania wrote a warm email to Ghislaine Maxwell, Epstein’s longtime associate who is now serving a 20-year prison sentence after being convicted of participating in his sex-trafficking operation. It is not clear if the sender of the email is the future first lady, Melania Knavs, who married Trump about three years later.

The email was sent shortly after New York magazine published a profile of Epstein that included a photo of him with Maxwell. The article included a now-famous quote from Donald Trump in which he called Epstein a “terrific guy” and said that “he likes beautiful women as much as I do, and many of them are on the younger side.”

“Dear G!,” the October 2002 email begins. “Nice story about JE in NY mag. You look great on the picture. I know you are very busy flying all over the world. … Have a great time!” The sender signs off: “Love, Melania.” The sender’s email address is redacted.

Maxwell does not appear to have replied for a few months. “Sweat pea — thanks for your message,” she wrote in January 2003. Maxwell notes that she is on her way back to New York and will not have time to see Melania. “I will try and call though,” she writes. “Keep well.”

There Are a Variety of Other References to Trump

The files occasionally demonstrate the Trump administration’s apparent sensitivity about the president’s inclusion in the trove of documents.

One file shows a series of text messages between Epstein and Steve Bannon, Trump’s former adviser, from 2019. One includes a photo of Trump delivering a speech. Trump’s face has been covered with a black redaction box. (Bannon declined to comment on the messages.)

In December, the Justice Department posted and then removed from its website a photo of Epstein’s New York mansion, in which an image of Trump with a number of women was visible inside a drawer. The department later reposted the photo and said it had been temporarily taken down to protect Epstein’s victims.

Another email released Friday indicates that Epstein was considering whether to contact Trump in 2011. In an email to a private investigator, Epstein indicates that he wants to speak to Trump about Virginia Giuffre. Giuffre, who died by suicide last year, was one of Epstein’s most prominent victims. She said that she had been lured into Epstein’s web when she worked at Mar-a-Lago.

In the email, Epstein asks the private investigator whether there are any alternatives before contacting Trump. It is not clear if he tried to reach the future president.

Trump said last summer that he ended his relationship with Epstein at least in part because Epstein “stole” Giuffre from Mar-a-Lago. Trump noted that Giuffre never accused him of misconduct.

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This article originally appeared in The New York Times.

By Steve Eder, Michael C. Bender and David Enrich/Eric Lee
c. 2026 The New York Times Company