A Fox News host on Thursday emphasized Donald Trump's inclusion in the list of names mentioned in the newly unsealed court documents pertaining to child trafficker and sex offender Jeffrey Epstein.
"Fox & Friends" began its Thursday morning show diving into reports about the 40 files and over 900 pages of court documents related to a 2015 civil lawsuit made public on Wednesday that disclosed the names of more than 100 people allegedly connected to the disgraced financier described as his associates, victims or affiliates. Former President Bill Clinton, lawyer Alan Dershowitz and magician David Copperfield seemed to be the most noticed among those named in the documents, but former President Trump, according to Mediate, has largely evaded the spotlight garnered from the documents' release.
Following a brief news report, the talk show's panel mostly approached the subject with caution, but host Steve Doocy highlighted a New York Post report about Epstein's brother, Mark Epstein's, claim that his brother suggested to him that he had incendiary information on both the Clintons and Trump.
“His brother, Mark Epstein, spoke to The New York Post a couple of days ago,” Doocy said. “Mark Epstein, the brother, said Jeffrey told him once, quote, ‘If I said what I know about both candidates running in 2016' — meaning Hillary and Donald Trump — 'they’d have to cancel the election.’ He did not elaborate what that meant, however.”
Doocy then referenced an alleged victim who testified that Jeffrey Epstein informed her Bill Clinton "likes them young" and that in one instance when she was traveling on Epstein's plane, they made an unplanned stop in Atlantic City, Epstein said, "Great, we’re going to call up Trump," and they went to visit the billionaire at a casino.
“But she wasn’t sure which casino it was,” host Ainsley Earhart said, to which Doocy replied, "They didn’t know that. But they did know it was Trump.”
Trump and Clinton are not accused of any wrongdoing. Trump previously lauded his relationship with Jeffrey Epstein in a 2002 profile in New York Magazine.
“I’ve known Jeff for fifteen years. Terrific guy,” Trump told the magazine at the time. “He’s a lot of fun to be with. It is even said that he likes beautiful women as much as I do, and many of them are on the younger side. No doubt about it — Jeffrey enjoys his social life.”
Trump and Clinton were among the dozens of powerful men linked to the convicted trafficker through the court documents, which Manhattan-based federal Judge Loretta Preska ordered unsealed last month.
According to NPR, the documents also refer to Prince Andrew, former Israeli Prime Minister Ehud Barak, actor Kevin Spacey, the late New Mexico Gov. Bill Richardson and former Vice President Al Gore, among others. Their presence in the documents does not translate to evidence of wrongdoing or mean that any of them have been accused of wrongdoing.
Many of the most prominent individuals named in the documents were already known to have ties to Epstein because of his previous court cases and media disclosures. Most of those named publicly have denied wrongdoing or previous knowledge of Epstein's criminal acts.
These newly unsealed records do, however, provide more details on the highly publicized case and new salacious allegations about these powerful men's behavior, NPR notes.
Federal prosecutors said Epstein, whose decades of private financial work served a secretive list of wealthy clients, also ran an underage sex-trafficking ring based in Manhattan and Palm Beach, Florida. He allegedly hatched a plot to identify and exploit "dozens" of vulnerable young women and girls, some of whom were 14 years old, that began around 1994 and lasted until at least 2004.
In civil lawsuits that came later, some of his victims claimed that Epstein instructed them to have sex with a slate of powerful men. He arranged sexual encounters for "numerous prominent American politicians, powerful business executives, foreign presidents, a well-known Prime Minister, and other world leaders," one suit filed in 2014 claimed.
The newly unsealed records naming associates of Epstein were originally compiled as part of a 2015 civil lawsuit filed by Virginia Giuffre, who claimed she was one of Epstein's underage victims.
Bill Clinton's name appears frequently in the documents, with another mention alleging that the former president took a trip with Epstein to Thailand.
Angel Ureña, a spokesman for Clinton, said it had been nearly 20 years since Clinton had last had contact with Epstein, who died in 2019, and that the former president has never been accused of any wrongdoing. Ureña also referred NPR to a previous 2019 statement on behalf of Clinton responding to the allegations of ties to Epstein.
"President Clinton knows nothing about the terrible crimes Jeffrey Epstein pleaded guilty to in Florida some years ago, or those with which he has been recently charged in New York," the statement began.
Statement on Jeffrey Epstein. pic.twitter.com/98ha9YYd1l
— Angel Ureña (@angelurena) July 8, 2019
As early as 2005, local, state and federal authorities in Florida probed Epstein's alleged illicit sexual activity involving minors.
After thorough negotiations with prosecutors, Epstein dodged federal prosecution and was allowed to plead guilty to relatively minor state charges involving prostitution and prostitution involving a minor. He was given an 18-month sentence, much of which took place in a Florida work-release program.
Epstein, who was released in 2009, continued to move in circles with influential, wealthy and powerful people. A Wall Street Journal investigation released last month found that following his conviction, the then registered sex-offender was often accompanied "by attractive women in their late teens or twenties" to meetings with celebrities, billionaires and politicians.
The Miami Herald's 2018 exposé of Epstein's crimes and legal deal-making made Epstein's world come crashing down, and the then-66-year-old was arrested in July 2019 on federal sex-trafficking charges.
Officials in the Department of Justice said he died by suicide in prison a month later while awaiting trial.
