Trump says ‘terrible’ Epstein files are tarnishing reputations

22 Dec 2025, 20:22 by Kate Sullivan · The Seattle Times

President Donald Trump said he believed “people are very angry that pictures are being released” that connect them to notorious sex offender Jeffrey Epstein, days after the Justice Department released a new tranche of files tied to the late financier.

“People that really had nothing to do with Epstein, but they’re in a picture with him because he was in a party, and you ruin a reputation of somebody,” Trump said Monday at his Mar-a-Lago estate in Florida. “So a lot of people are very angry that this continues.”

Trump said he hated to see former President Bill Clinton, who appeared frequently in the release, being tarnished by the association, describing the situation as “terrible.”

“But this is what the Democrats — mostly Democrats, and a couple of bad Republicans — are asking for,” Trump continued. “So they give you their photos of me too. Everybody was friendly with this guy, either friendly or not friendly, but he was around.”

The Epstein files, and the fight over their disclosure, have sparked infighting among Trump’s supporters, adding to the political headwinds that the president is facing heading into next year’s midterm elections.

The Justice Department last Friday disclosed thousands of pages of photographs, phone records and notes from the federal investigations of Epstein. But much of the release was heavily redacted, and it did not contain the entire scope of documents in the government’s possession. That triggered accusations from lawmakers in both parties that Trump’s administration failed to adhere to a bipartisan law that required the full release of the files.

The Justice Department said the volume of material was too large to process by a Dec. 19 deadline set by Congress, and that more files would be made public in the coming weeks.

Critics were unsatisfied with that explanation, and some said the gradual release was an attempt to protect Trump, who was once friends with Epstein before the two men had a falling out in the mid-2000s. The president last month signed the Epstein files legislation into law only after pressure from congressional Republicans forced him to abandon his previous opposition to it.

A spokesman for Clinton on Monday complained that the limited release of documents appeared designed to protect “someone or something” and called for the immediate release of all additional material related to the former president.

“Refusal to do so will confirm the widespread suspicion the Department of Justice’s actions to date are not about transparency, but about insinuation — using selective releases to imply wrongdoing about individuals who have already been repeatedly cleared by the very same Department of Justice,” said Angel Ureña in a statement.

Trump on Monday emphasized that he ended his friendship with Epstein and accused his political enemies of using the controversy to harm him politically.

“A lot of Republicans are angry because of the fact that it’s just used to deflect against a tremendous success,” Trump said.

Democratic Representative Ro Khanna of California and Republican Representative Thomas Massie of Kentucky, the cosponsors of the Epstein Files Transparency Act, threatened to hold Attorney General Pam Bondi in contempt of Congress for the department’s handling of the release.

“The quickest way, and I think most expeditious way to get justice for these victims is to bring inherent contempt against Pam Bondi,” Massie said Sunday during a joint interview with Khanna on CBS’s Face the Nation.

Trump called Massie “a real low life” and a “loser” for working with Democrats on the release of the documents.

Many survivors of Epstein’s abuse also rebuked the Justice Department for its partial release of the files that was heavily redacted, saying in a joint statement that the failure to release all of the files was a violation of the law.