Attorney General Pam Bondi told President Donald Trump at a meeting in May that his name appeared multiple times in Department of Justice documents about sex offender Jeffrey Epstein, The Wall Street Journal reported Wednesday.
The May date reported by the Journal was weeks before the DOJ’s July 7 announcement that it would not release the Epstein files despite earlier promises by the attorney general, who leads the DOJ, and others in the president’s orbit that the material would be disclosed to the public.
The DOJ said Wednesday in a statement that Bondi and Deputy Attorney General Todd Blanche discussed the Epstein files with Trump as part of their “routine briefing” but did not specify the timing of the briefing.
The Journal reported that the president was also told at the meeting that “many other high-profile figures were also named” in the Epstein files and that the “files contained what officials felt was unverified hearsay about many people, including Trump, who had socialized with Epstein in the past.”
Being mentioned in the Epstein records is not a sign of wrongdoing, the Journal noted.
