The Wall Street Journal said Wednesday that US Attorney General Pam Bondi informed President Donald Trump in May that his name was found in investigative documents pertaining to convicted sexual offender Jeffrey Epstein.
Trump’s administration has been embroiled in a political crisis for weeks, and the revelation that he appeared in the Justice Department’s case files threatened to worsen it. Conspiracy theories concerning Epstein’s clients and the circumstances surrounding his 2019 death in jail have been stoked by certain Trump supporters for years.
After the news, the White House released conflicting messages. Although it initially called it “fake news,” a White House official subsequently told Reuters that the administration was not disputing that Trump’s name was included in certain files.
