Trump live updates: Trump asks court to unseal Epstein grand jury testimony but still won’t release files at center of uproar

Pranksters filled Trump Tower’s gift shop with merchandise featuring pictures of the late convicted sex offender Jeffrey Epstein with the president.

The Good Liars, a political comedy duo of Jason Selvig and Davram Stiefler, posted photos of postcards with an old photograph of Donald Trump and Epstein they say were among the souvenirs at the president’s Manhattan skyscraper.

The duo confirmed to The Independent they were responsible for the prank. The Independent reached out to the Trump Tower store and a representative declined to confirm the incident or comment further.

A similar prank was recently carried out in London when activists put the same old photo of Trump and Epstein on a bus shelter near the U.S. embassy ahead of the president’s state visit to the United Kingdom in September, according to an Instagram post from the group Everyone Hates Elon.

President Donald Trump had socialized with the late financier Jeffrey Epstein decades ago when he was a New York real estate mogul.

In his second presidential term, Trump has been embroiled in controversy surrounding the feds’ unreleased files on Epstein, a convicted sex offender who faced federal sex trafficking charges when he died in jail in 2019.

Trump’s past connection with Epstein has also been under scrutiny as of late. Here is a timeline of their relationship, according to a report by The Wall Street Journal:

• 1992: Trump and Epstein are taped by NBC partying at Mar-a-Lago in Florida.
• 2002: Trump tells New York magazine, “I’ve known Jeff for 15 years. Terrific guy.”
• 2008: Epstein pleads guilty in Florida to soliciting and procuring a minor for prostitution. Trump has said his relationship with Epstein ended before Epstein pleaded guilty to the sex offense.
• 2019: Epstein is arrested on federal charges related to the sexual abuse of dozens of minor girls, and Trump, who is in his first term as president, said he hadn’t talked to Epstein for roughly 15 years. He said in the Oval Office at the time, “I was not a fan of his, that I can tell you.”

A poster of Donald Trump with the late convicted sex offender Jeffrey Epstein was put up in London ahead of the president’s state visit to the United Kingdom in September.

More than a week after Donald Trump’s base looked like it might be fracturing over the Justice Department’s “no client list” Jeffrey Epstein memo, MAGA world got its “perfect offramp” in the ongoing saga thanks to the Wall Street Journal’s latest bombshell.

While on the surface the WSJ’s story – which the president fought tooth and nail to keep from being published – should have inflamed the turmoil on the right as it further exposed just how close the president once was with the deceased sex trafficker, it instead offered MAGA pundits and influencers the chance to join Trump in lambasting their shared enemy – the mainstream press.

All of the chaos caused by the bombshell report in The Wall Street Journal that President Donald Trump sent a bawdy 50th birthday note to disgraced financier and convicted sex offender Jeffrey Epstein masked the fact he received a significant win.

Eric Garcia reports on how Republicans achieved something on their wishlist for decades… and what might come next.

Here’s how talk of the case came storming back into the national conversation.

In January 2024, a court unsealed nearly 1,000 pages of documents collected as evidence in a lawsuit filed by Jeffrey Epstein victim Virginia Giuffre against Ghislaine Maxwell.

Giuffre died by suicide on April 26 at her home in Neergabby, Australia.

Being named in these documents does not indicate any wrongdoing related to Epstein or anyone else. The list includes many of Epstein’s accusers and alleged victims, as well as people with only tangential connections to Epstein who were pulled into the lawsuit against Maxwell.

While judges, court staff, and legal representatives are excluded, here are some of the names that do appear in the legal records connected to Epstein:

The Trump administration has asked a judge to unseal grand jury transcripts in Jeffrey Epstein’s case. But that’s just a fraction of the so-called “Epstein files” that have torn the MAGA movement’s world wide open.

Public pressure has mounted in the days since the Justice Department announced an anticlimactic end to the Epstein saga, stating there was no evidence to support a “client list” of associates, whom some claim Epstein blackmailed, over their alleged involvement in his trafficking scheme.

For days, the White House has been consumed by the Epstein uproar with conservative commentators and prominent Republicans alike demanding increased transparency around the late disgraced financier’s case.

The president, who campaigned on releasing the so-called “Epstein files”, alleged they were a “hoax” made up by Democrats.

Read more from Kelly Rissman:

President Donald Trump has grown tired of defending Attorney General Pam Bondi’s handling of government files on the late convicted sex offender Jeffrey Epstein and wants her to take responsibility for fixing the situation, NBC News reported, citing four people familiar with the matter.

Trump has stood by his attorney general despite the backlash the administration has faced after the Justice Department and FBI released a memo earlier this month saying there was never any client list from the wealthy financier, which some suspect would expose powerful people who may have partaken in Epstein’s crimes.

“I do think that he likes and respects Pam, but she has without question caused some headaches for them,” one of NBC News’ sources said. “At the end of the day, at this point she is almost assuredly is just doing what she is told, so I believe she is very safe, but has had missteps.”

When asked about the White House’s opinion of Bondi’s job performance, one senior White House official told the outlet they thought the situation had “stabilized.”

White House Press Secretary Karoline Leavitt said in a statement to the Independent: “Attorney General Pam Bondi is working tirelessly to end the weaponization that has rotted our justice system, remove violent criminals from our streets, and help President Trump in making America safe again. The president is appreciative of her efforts.”

The Independent has reached out to the White House for comment.