The legacy of the sex offender Jeffrey Epstein has been a thorn in Donald Trump’s side for much of his second presidency.
Having promised for years to publish in their entirety the files revealing Epstein’s ties with the world’s rich and powerful, Trump, since returning to the White House, sought to stymie their publication at every turn.
Only after Congress passed a bill ordering their release was the administration forced into publishing the files. Yet even then, many were heavily redacted, and many remain unpublished.
Now, a report has revealed how senior officials in the Trump administration clashed in meetings held in the White House situation room over how to manage the crisis as the US President continued to refuse to release the files. His name, alongside that of other prominent people, appears many times in the files, although he is not accused of any illegal activity in relation to Epstein.
The report from The New York Times reveals the panic that paralysed the highest levels inside the White House before the growing pressure forced them to release millions of the files in January.
