https://www.reuters.com/world/us/jeffrey-epsteins-ties-politicians-business-titans-other-figures-2026-02-18/ 

What did the Epstein files reveal about his ties to politicians and business titans?

By Andy Sullivan

February 2, 20267:12 PM ESTUpdated 22 hours ago

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February 19 - The U.S. Justice Department's release of millions of internal documents related to Jeffrey Epstein has revealed the late financier and sex offender's ties to many prominent people in politics, finance, academia and business - both before and after he pleaded guilty in 2008 to prostitution charges, including soliciting an underage girl.

Evidence in multiple legal and criminal cases has also shed light on these connections. Epstein was arrested again in 2019 on federal charges of sex trafficking of minors. His 2019 death in a Manhattan jail cell was ruled a suicide.

The Justice Department has said the material could include fake images or untrue allegations, as well as pornographic material. The Justice Department's No. 2 official, Todd Blanche, has said the material does not amount to evidence of criminal sexual activity by those named in the files.

Here are some of the prominent people whose ties to Epstein were revealed in the newly released material.

DONALD TRUMP

Trump socialized extensively with Epstein in the 1990s and 2000s and is quoted in a magazine profile during that period as saying that Epstein likes women "on the younger side." Documents released by the Justice Department include photos of Trump with several women whose faces are redacted and a suggestive note to Epstein, framed by the outline of a naked woman, which appears to bear Trump's signature. Evidence and testimony submitted in the 2021 trial of Epstein's associate Ghislaine Maxwell indicate Trump traveled on Epstein's plane multiple times. Epstein wrote in one email that Trump "knew about the girls," though it is not clear what he meant.

The Republican president has denied any knowledge of Epstein's crimes and says he broke off ties in the early 2000s, before Epstein's plea deal. Trump denies ever flying on Epstein's plane and says the suggestive note was faked.

ANDREW MOUNTBATTEN-WINDSOR

The former Prince Andrew, Duke of York, has been arrested on suspicion of misconduct in public office over allegations he sent confidential government documents to Epstein. Documents released by the Justice Department suggest he forwarded reports to Epstein in 2010 about Vietnam, Singapore and other places he had visited as a British trade envoy.

Mountbatten-Windsor has already been stripped of his royal title and evicted from his mansion due to his social and business relationship with Epstein. He has denied wrongdoing and has expressed regret for his friendship with Epstein. He has said he never saw any sex crimes.

The former royal settled a civil lawsuit in 2022 brought by the late Virginia Giuffre, who accused him of sexually abusing her while she was a teenager, and he has rebuffed requests by the Justice Department to cooperate in multiple criminal investigations. The Justice Department files include several photos of him with women whose faces are redacted.

BILL CLINTON

The Democratic former U.S. president socialized with Epstein and flew on his plane several times in the early 2000s, after Clinton left office. Photos released by the Justice Department show him swimming and posing with women whose faces are redacted. Clinton has denied wrongdoing and says he regrets his past association with Epstein. He is due to give a closed-door deposition to a House of Representatives committee on February 27. Clinton has dismissed the Republican-led investigation as a partisan effort to protect Trump.

HOWARD LUTNICK

Trump's Commerce Secretary visited Epstein's private island for lunch in 2012 and invited him to a fundraiser in 2015 for Hillary Clinton, Trump's Democratic rival in the 2016 presidential election, emails show. That contradicts Lutnick's claim that he vowed never to "be in a room" with Epstein following a 2005 incident in which the financier showed Lutnick a massage table at his townhouse and made a sexually suggestive comment. The former Cantor Fitzgerald CEO lived next door to Epstein in New York at the time. Lutnick told Congress that he "barely had anything to do with that person," and the White House has rejected calls for him to resign.

ELON MUSK

The billionaire Tesla (TSLA.O), opens new tab CEO asked Epstein if he had any parties planned on his island in 2012 but apparently decided not to visit. Epstein responded that "the ratio on my island" might make Musk's female companion uncomfortable, without elaborating further. Musk invited Epstein to visit him for drinks on another island a few days later, but it is unclear whether they met. Musk said on Saturday he had few interactions with Epstein and turned down repeated invitations to visit the island or fly on Epstein's plane.

PETER MANDELSON

UK police say they are reviewing reports of alleged misconduct involving the veteran British politician following the release of emails suggesting he had leaked discussions on possible UK asset sales and tax changes to Epstein during the financial crash, and that Epstein had recorded payments to Mandelson or his then-partner. He was fired as ambassador to the United States last year after an earlier batch of emails showed him calling Epstein "my best pal" and advising him on seeking early jail release. Mandelson has apologized to Epstein's victims. He has denied wrongdoing.

The scandal represents the biggest challenge yet to Prime Minister Keir Starmer, who faces calls to resign for appointing Mandelson, and three senior members of his government have stepped down.

KATHY RUEMMLER

Goldman Sachs' top lawyer resigned after revelations that she accepted gifts from Epstein and gave him public relations advice between 2014 and 2019. Ruemmler, a former White House counsel to Democratic President Barack Obama, says she dealt with Epstein as a defense attorney and was not aware of any ongoing criminal conduct.

LARRY SUMMERS

The former U.S. Treasury secretary and Harvard University president flew on Epstein's jet several times as far back as 1998 and met with him to discuss economic and business matters while he served as president of Harvard. The two maintained a relationship as late as 2019, when email communications show Summers soliciting advice about a romantic interest. No evidence of wrongdoing has surfaced, but Summers stepped down from positions at Harvard, OpenAI and other prominent institutions in November following the release of those documents.

Summers said in November he was "deeply ashamed" of his actions and said he would step back from public commitments to "repair relationships with the people closest to me."

KEVIN WARSH

Trump's nominee to head the Federal Reserve appeared in an email from a publicist to Epstein listing 43 people, including celebrities such as Martha Stewart, headed to a Christmas gathering in 2010. It was not clear whether Warsh knew Epstein or why Epstein was sent the note, and Warsh has not responded to a request for comment.

MELANIA TRUMP

The files include a 2002 email from Trump's wife, Melania Trump, to Maxwell about a magazine piece on Epstein. "You look great," the email says.

BILL GATES

The documents indicate Gates and Epstein met repeatedly after Epstein's prison term to discuss expanding the Microsoft (MSFT.O), opens new tab founder's philanthropic efforts. They also include pictures of the Microsoft founder posing with women whose faces are redacted. Gates has said the relationship was confined to philanthropy-related discussions and has said it was a mistake to meet with him.

JES STALEY

The former JPMorgan and Barclays (BARC.L), opens new tab executive is listed as a participant in Epstein-hosted gatherings. He exchanged around 1,200 emails with Epstein between 2008 and 2012, some of which contained discussions about Disney characters and photographs of young women, according to court documents. Staley has denied knowing about Epstein's criminal activities. He was banned from the UK financial industry and has been sued by JPMorgan, which claims he concealed information about Epstein's misconduct.

PETER ATTIA

The wellness influencer's name appears more than 1,700 times in the latest trove of documents released by the Justice Department. He said on social media he met with Epstein seven or eight times at his New York City home between 2014 and 2019, but never witnessed illegal activity or saw Epstein accompanied by anyone who appeared to be underage.

BRAD KARP

The head of the powerful Wall Street law firm Paul Weiss stepped down after emails revealed longstanding personal and business communications with Epstein through 2019. Karp attended dinners with Epstein and sought his help getting a job on a Woody Allen film, the emails show. The firm said Karp regrets his interactions with Epstein and never witnessed or participated in any misconduct.

BORGE BRENDE

The head of the World Economic Forum is under internal investigation following revelations that he attended dinners with Epstein in 2018 and 2019 and emailed with him. Brende said he would not have participated had he known about Epstein's criminal record.

CASEY WASSERMAN

The top U.S. official overseeing the 2028 Olympic Games in Los Angeles faces calls to step down after the release of flirtatious emails between him and Maxwell as early as 2003. Wasserman has denied having a personal or business relationship with Epstein. A review by the 2028 Los Angeles Olympics organizing committee determined that Wasserman's only interaction with Epstein occurred when he and his then-wife flew on a humanitarian mission to Africa aboard Epstein's plane at the invitation of the Clinton Foundation.

NORWEGIAN CROWN PRINCESS METTE-MARIT AND OTHER NORWEGIAN OFFICIALS

The spouse of the heir to Norway's throne apologized for her extensive email correspondence with Epstein, saying she showed poor judgment.

Former Prime Minister Thorbjoern Jagland faces a corruption investigation for dealings with Epstein when he was head of the Norwegian Nobel Committee and head of the Council of Europe. Documents show he asked Epstein for help financing an apartment in Oslo and discussed a visit to Epstein's private island, while Epstein asked for an introduction to Russian Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov. Jagland has denied wrongdoing and says he never visited the island.

Former diplomats Terje Roed-Larsen and Mona Juul also face a corruption inquiry for their dealings with Epstein. They have denied wrongdoing.

ARIANE DE ROTHSCHILD

The head of the family-owned Edmond de Rothschild Swiss bank agreed to multiple meetings with Epstein in New York and Paris before his 2019 arrest, emails show. They do not contain any sign of criminal wrongdoing, and a spokesperson for the bank said she had no knowledge of his conduct.

MEHMET OZ

The celebrity doctor who now heads the U.S. Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services invited Epstein to a Valentine's Day party in 2016, and his name appears several more times in the released files. He has not been accused of wrongdoing.

THOMAS PRITZKER

Pritzker stepped down as executive chairman of Hyatt Hotels, acknowledging "terrible judgment" in maintaining contact with Epstein. Documents show numerous business and personal communications with Epstein and Maxwell as late as 2019.

JACK LANG

French police are investigating the country's former culture minister and his daughter Caroline on suspicion of tax fraud, following the release of his correspondence with Epstein between 2012 and 2019. Lang has said he was unaware of Epstein's crimes.

Reporting by Andy Sullivan in Washington; Editing by Craig Timberg, Rod Nickel, Toby Chopra

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 https://abcnews.com/US/epstein-hid-trove-evidence-investigators-decade-documents-suggest/story?id=130494832

Epstein hid trove of evidence from investigators for more than a decade, documents suggest

Unsealed files suggest Epstein went to great lengths to hide potential evidence.

ByJames Hill, Aaron Katersky, and Peter Charalambous

February 25, 2026, 3:36 PM

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2:17

Epstein hid trove of evidence from investigators, documents suggestThe late sex offender Jeffrey Epstein appeared to have hidden a trove of potential evidence of his crimes for more than a de...

Rick Friedman/Corbis via Getty Images, FILE

The late sex offender Jeffrey Epstein appears to have successfully hidden a trove of potential evidence of his crimes from investigators for more than a decade, according to documents released this month by the Department of Justice. 

Internal correspondence between Epstein's attorneys and private investigators, as well as previously sealed court filings, suggest that the disgraced financier went to extreme lengths to hide the potential evidence during the critical three-year period when local and federal law enforcement began investigating him before he secured a lenient plea deal that allowed him to avoid a lengthy prison sentence. 

Less than two weeks before the Palm Beach Police Department raided Epstein's mansion in October 2005, a private investigator retained by Roy Black, a criminal defense lawyer for the disgraced financier, removed a trove of evidence from the home, including multiple computers, more than two dozen phone directories, and sexually explicit material, according to documents released by the DOJ.

DOJ appears to have withheld some Epstein documents containing allegations against Trump, Oversight Democrats say

State and federal prosecutors appeared to have never accessed the materials while they investigated Epstein, potentially shielding Epstein from criminal exposure and contributing to how he was able to evade justice for more than a decade. 

A 2020 report from the DOJ's Office of Professional Responsibility about the issues with the investigation later concluded that the computers contained "potentially critical" evidence that could have changed the trajectory of the case. 

"There was good reason to believe the computers contained relevant -- and potentially critical -- information; and it was clear Epstein did not want the contents of his computers disclosed," the report said. 

In the two decades that have followed -- despite multiple investigations into Epstein's criminal actions -- the boxes of sensitive evidence appear to have been passed between representatives of Epstein but never fully recovered by law enforcement. 

While law enforcement has long been aware of the removed computers, documents released earlier this month by the Department of Justice for the first time shed light on the evidence removed from the home and the ill-fated effort to retrieve them by law enforcement. 

The documents outlining the trove of removed evidence were first reported by The Telegraph. 

'Items of potential evidentiary value'

According to a 2005 memo from private investigator William Riley to Black, another private investigator, Paul Lavery, visited Epstein's Palm Beach home at Black's direction to remove "items of potential evidentiary value" from the home. 

Attempts by ABC News to contact Lavery and Riley Wednesday about the developments were unsuccessful. Riley's partner in his private investigative firm Steve Kiraly declined to comment.

Black died last year, and an attorney at his former firm said he was occupied with an ongoing trial on Wednesday and unavailable.  

Searching Epstein's home less than two weeks before police would raid it, Lavery removed more than 100 pieces of potential evidence, including three computers, 29 bound telephone directories, a three-page listing of nearby masseuses, and at least 10 photos of nude or partially nude women, according to the memo. At least two of the photos had handwritten messages on them, including from a woman who wrote, "You better never forget about me" before signing her name and ending the note "Class of 2005," the memo said.  

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Lavery also removed more than a dozen items of sexual paraphernalia, five pieces of women's underwear, Epstein's concealed carry permit, an Epstein identification card for Harvard University, and more than $2,000 in cash, according to the memo. Among the removed items was also more than 40 mainly pornographic VHS tapes and books titled "'Compleat Slave' -- creating and living an erotic dominant/submissive lifestyle" and "'Training with Miss Abernathy' -- a workbook for erotic slaves and their owners," the memo said.  

The detective with the Palm Beach Police Department who was in charge of the investigation noted in a court filing that several items in Epstein's home "were conspicuously absent" when they arrived to execute the search warrant. 

"For example, there were several hanging file folders that had their contents removed, and the pre-existing security cameras that I had observed during my last visit to Mr. Epstein's residence were in place but were not connected to recording equipment," he said in the filing. "In addition, at each location where a computer had been present, computer monitors, printers, and other peripheral devices were present but the computers (CPU-Central processing unit) themselves were removed."

A FBI later agent attested in a then-sealed court filing that the items "were purposely removed from Mr. Epstein's home in anticipation of an execution of a search warrant" and may contain vital evidence. 

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"A review of Mr. Epstein's computers may provide additional electronically stored message logs which could be further evidence of Mr. Epstein's intent to travel to engage in sexual activity with teenagers he recruited from five Palm Beach County high schools," the court filing said. 

According to the filing, one of the computers potentially contained critical surveillance camera footage because it previously was hard-wired to the home's surveillance system. 

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"The FBI investigation has determined that Mr. Epstein was actively involved in lewd and lascivious conduct with minor females as early as March 2004. To the extent that Mr. Epstein tries to deny that any or all of the victims ever visited his home, video footage of them at the house would rebut such a claim," the filing said. 

A review of the Department of Justice's Epstein library and an index of evidence released last year by the Trump administration earlier this year suggests the materials were never fully recovered by law enforcement. Testimony from an FBI analyst during the 2021 trial of Epstein co-conspirator Ghislaine Maxwell suggested that investigators recovered a copy of at least one of the computers, though the original computers and physical documents appear to have never been located. 

'She needed to gather the stuff from the house'

The removal of the computers and other items was memorialized in multiple interviews conducted by law enforcement in the following two decades. 

A woman who worked as a personal assistant for Epstein told the FBI in 2021 that she was instructed by the disgraced financier to gather his items so an unidentified man could collect them from Epstein's Palm Beach Home. 

"[She] recalled the conversation she had with EPSTEIN was where he told her that something happened to his detriment and she needed to gather the stuff from the house," an FBI agent wrote in a report summarizing her account. 

While the assistant said she believed she would likely be meeting with a member of law enforcement, she said she arrived at the home, gathered the material, and provided it to an unknown man. The assistant said she similarly removed items from Epstein's island. 

Epstein's property manager also recounted the handover in his interview with federal agents, describing that Lavery retrieved the computers in the fall of 2005. 

In the following years, law enforcement unsuccessfully made multiple attempts to retrieve the items, though court documents suggest that their attempt to recover the evidence was largely focused on the three computers, rather than the trove of physical evidence -- such as dozens of address books and sexual paraphernalia -- that were also removed from the home. 

'Never seen the equipment again'

As the investigation into Epstein heightened in the months following the search, Epstein's lawyers fought to keep the materials out of the hands of law enforcement, arguing in previously sealed grand jury materials that the attempt to recover the materials were "simply the most recent of a series of highly intrusive and unusual attempts to acquire highly personal and/or privileged information" about Epstein. 

In court filings, Epstein's attorneys appeared to acknowledge that the items were removed from the home prior to the search but argued the materials were irrelevant to the investigation and protected by attorney-client privilege. 

"Without disclosing any work done by Mr. Riley or his firm on Mr. Epstein's behalf and at my direction, any actions thereafter taken by him or the firm were taken in connection with the legal representation of Mr. Epstein," Epstein's attorney Roy Black told the court in a then-sealed motion. 

The exact location of the materials in the months following the search is not clear, though recently released documents suggest that the materials quickly changed hands. According to notes taken by federal agents in 2007, Lavery claims that he promptly delivered the items to Riley, another private investigator who worked for Epstein and managed multiple storage units for the financier, the Telegraph first reported. 

Jeffrey Epstein in Cambridge, Ma., Sept 8, 2004.

Rick Friedman/Corbis via Getty Images, FILE

"I took the items that were given to me," Lavery said, according to notes. "Never seen the equipment again."

Riley was subpoenaed for the information but appears to never have handed over the material, objecting to the requests with the help of Epstein's lawyers. During the critical three-year period when Epstein was investigated by law enforcement before reaching a plea deal that allowed him to avoid a lengthy prison sentence, the trove of evidence was never accessed by law enforcement. 

When Epstein fulfilled his objection to plead guilty in state court pursuant to his non-prosecution agreement, the grand jury subpoena was withdrawn. When victims suing Epstein began seeking the materials in 2009, lawyers for the convicted sex offender appeared to spring into action to further ensure the materials would not be disclosed, citing the terms of the non-prosecution agreement. 

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"Over the weekend I learned that plaintiff's counsel are looking to get from me the computers and paperwork I took from Jeff's house prior to the Search Warrant. I have them locked in storage and would like to know what to do with them," Riley told an attorney for Epstein. "They are no longer needed in the criminal case, I assume." 

Riley later confirmed in a letter to Epstein's attorney Robert Critton that he would continue storing the materials in a "safe and secure location."

"If at any time, you are unable to maintain possession of those materials or have any concern whatsoever that Mr. Epstein's possession may be compromised in any manner, please advise me immediately such that we can take the necessary actions to protect and preserve those materials as is required in the Non-Prosecution Agreement," Critton wrote in a letter memorializing their conservation. Critton died in 2020. 

Email correspondence between Riley and Epstein suggest that the disgraced financier was paying to keep the materials in a storage unit as late as 2010, though their location in the following decade -- when investigators in New York opened a new investigation into Epstein and charged him with sex crimes before his 2019 death by suicide -- appears to still be a mystery. 

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