Two US presidents and their associations with Epstein

US President Donald Trump and former US President Bill Clinton are among several figures known for their association with convicted sex offender Jeffrey Epstein.

Trump and Clinton were each photographed with Epstein several times during the 1990s and early 2000s and sometimes moved in the same social circles.

Neither Trump nor Clinton have been accused of wrongdoing by survivors of Epstein’s abuse and they have both denied knowledge of his sexual offenses. All publicly available evidence to date suggests that their relationship with Epstein ended several years before his conviction.

BBC Verify scoured online archives to examine what we know about the two presidents’ decades-long associations with Jeffrey Epstein.

Jeffrey Epstein’s association with Donald Trump appears to have begun in the late 1980s and with Bill Clinton in the early 1990s.

In a 2002 interview with New York Magazine, Trump said he had known Epstein for 15 years, placing the start of their relationship around 1987.

There are several photos and videos of Trump and Epstein at various events in the early 1990s.

Archival footage shows the couple attended a party at Mar-a-Lago in 1992. Ghislaine Maxwell, an Epstein associate who was convicted of sex trafficking in 2021, can be seen behind them.

According to NBC, which dug up the footage from its archives in 2019, the video was filmed for an American talk show called “A Closer Look”, which featured a profile of a “newly divorced” Trump in one of its episodes.

At one point in the footage, Trump is shown dancing surrounded by young women. NBC reports that the women were Buffalo Bills cheerleaders, who were in town for a game against the Miami Dolphins.

Photographs obtained by CNN show that Epstein attended Trump’s wedding to Maria Maples in 1993 and that same year the two appeared together at the opening of the Harley Davidson Cafe in New York.

At the end of the decade, in 1999, the two were filmed chatting at a Victoria’s Secret fashion event in New York.

There are also photos of Bill Clinton with Epstein in the early 1990s.

In September 1993, for example, Epstein and Maxwell were photographed speaking with then-President Clinton after an event bringing together donors for a White House restoration project.

Public records show that Epstein made two $1,000 donations to Clinton’s presidential campaign in 1992.

Trump and Clinton’s relationship with Epstein continued into the new millennium.

Photos published in the Florida newspaper Palm Beach Post show Trump, Epstein, Ghislaine Maxwell and Prince Andrew at a charity fundraiser at Mar-a-Lago in 2000.

Writing in New York Magazine two years later, Trump said that Epstein was a “great guy” and that “they even say he likes beautiful women as much as I do, and a lot of them are younger.”

In that same article, Clinton said through her spokesperson that Epstein was “both a highly successful financier and a committed philanthropist.”

It was during this time that Clinton was taking trips on Epstein’s private jet.

Shortly after Epstein’s arrest on sex trafficking charges in July 2019, Clinton’s spokesperson said in a statement on

Appearing to reference one of these trips, Clinton’s spokesperson said in a 2002 New York Magazine article that Clinton “enjoyed her trip.” [Epstein’s] ideas and generosity during his recent trip to Africa to work on democratization, empowerment of the poor, citizen service and the fight against HIV/AIDS.

Clinton’s spokesperson’s 2019 statement also confirmed that a meeting between the two men took place in Epstein’s Harlem office in 2002, as well as a “brief visit” to Epstein’s New York apartment around the same time.

A photo of Epstein and Clinton in Brunei in 2002 appears in this archived version of a Vanity Fair article.

Trump and Clinton reportedly contributed – along with around 50 other people – to Jeffrey Epstein’s 50th anniversary book in 2003.

Earlier this year, the Wall Street Journal (WSJ) published a letter appearing to bear Trump’s signature beneath a sketch of a nude woman, which read: “Happy birthday – and may every day be another wonderful secret.”

Trump denied writing the letter to Epstein and sued the WSJ for defamation. He told ABC News at the time: “It’s not my signature. And it’s not the way I speak. And anyone who has covered me for a long time knows: it’s not my language.”

Bill Clinton’s name appeared in the birthday book alongside a message that read: “It’s reassuring, isn’t it, to have lasted this long, through all the years of learning and knowledge, adventures and [illegible word]and also have your childhood curiosity, the desire to make a difference and the comfort of friends.”

Clinton has not commented on her alleged message in the birthday book.

It was around the middle of the decade that Clinton and Trump’s relationship with Epstein appeared to have ended.

After Epstein’s arrest in 2019, Trump said of their relationship: “I had a falling out with him a long time ago. I don’t think I’ve spoken to him in 15 years.” This suggests the latter two spoke around 2004.

In 2025, Trump told reporters in Scotland that he kicked Epstein out of Mar-a-Lago because he “stole” from his employees.

“I said never do that again. He did it again and I kicked him out,” Trump said.

Clinton’s spokesperson said in 2019 that the former president had “not spoken to Epstein in over a decade.”

In his memoir published last year, Clinton said he “had no idea of ​​the crimes he committed.” [Epstein] was committing”, adding “when he was arrested for the first time in 2005, I stopped all contact with him”.

Epstein was first convicted of sex crimes in 2008. Shortly after being imprisoned for sex trafficking in 2019, he committed suicide in his prison cell.

BBC Verify has contacted the White House and Bill Clinton’s office for comment.

The White House told us: “President Trump has consistently called for transparency regarding Epstein’s records, and his administration has delivered on those promises: By releasing thousands of pages of documents, cooperating with the House Oversight Committee’s subpoena request, and recently calling for deeper investigations into Epstein’s Democratic friends, the Trump administration has done more for victims than Democrats ever have.”