Commentary: Fox News is going to extremes not to cover Epstein and that alleged Trump doodle

Fox News doesn't want to talk about the crude doodle of a naked woman, with its creepy message printed across her breasts and torso, and a signature — "Donald" — in her pubic area.

And it certainly doesn't want to draw attention to a newly released photo of the convicted child sex trafficker Jeffrey Epstein holding a oversized check signed "DJTRUMP," with a caption that reads, "Jeffrey showing early talents with money + women! Sells 'fully depreciated [female's name redacted]' to Donald Trump for $22,500."

While just about everyone has had something to say about the most damning documents yet to come out of the so-called Epstein files , America's No. 1 cable news network has chosen to sit this one out.

Questions about President Trump's shared history with the nation's most notorious sex offender rose to the top of news feeds Tuesday after the Republican-led House Oversight Committee released documents to the public that it had subpoenaed from the Epstein estate. The material included notes, drawings and photos from friends and associates to Epstein on his 50th birthday in 2003.

The "body art" letter that appears to be written by Trump features this bizarre, imaginary conversation:

Voice Over: There must be more to life than having everything.

Donald: Yes, there is, but I won't tell you what it is.

Jeffrey: Nor will I, since I already know what it is.

Donald: We have certain things in common, Jeffrey.

Jeffrey: Yes, we do, come to think of it.

Donald: Enigmas never age, have you noticed that?

Jeffrey: As a matter of fact, it was clear to me the last time I saw you.

Donald: A friend is a wonderful thing. Happy birthday — and may every day be another wonderful secret.

Fox News on Tuesday suppressed the sleazy birthday note like a dark family secret and instead focused on safer, more comfortable subject matter, like Bill Clinton. But there wasn't much to say since the birthday greeting that appeared to have been signed by the former president lacked drawings of naked females or implications about buying girls and/or women for sex. The short passage praised Epstein's "childlike curiosity." Fortunately, Fox had other breaking stories to chase.

Host Sean Hannity focused on a deadly North Carolina train stabbing and how it implicated Democrats' "woke" criminal policies. Earlier in the day, Fox News was busy plumbing the depths of the Biden "autopen" scandal after a bombshell report.

Fox News' website was equally as busy avoiding the nation's top story. It led with "Charlotte mayor scores primary re-election victory amid national backlash over gruesome train murder" and another breaking story: "Hellfire missile bounces off mysterious orb in stunning UAP footage shown to Congress."

Its story on the scandalous documents? "Inside Epstein's infamous 'birthday book': Clinton's note, poolside candid photos and bizarre animal pictures." The piece was toward the bottom of the page, tucked away like dirty laundry. It never once mentioned Trump.

Ghislaine Maxwell compiled the birthday book, collecting sentiments from Epstein's friends and then gifting the album to her high-rolling financier bestie. Less than two decades later, the duo would be convicted of sex trafficking, among other charges. Epstein died in jail of a reported suicide In 2019, Maxwell is serving a 20-year prison term.

Trump said Tuesday when asked to respond to the birthday letter, "I don't comment on something that's a dead issue. I gave all comments to the staff. It's a dead issue." White House Press Secretary Karoline Leavitt told reporters Tuesday during a briefing that "the president did not write this letter. He didn't sign this letter." She said the administration would be open to a handwriting expert reviewing the signature on the letter.

But several news organizations have beaten them to it and compared the signature on the Epstein letter against Trump's signature on other documents and found them to be similar .

The alleged Trump letter was first reported by the Wall Street Journal in July, when the president denied writing it and said it was "a fake thing." He filed a lawsuit against the paper's publisher, reporters and executives, including News Corp. owner Rupert Murdoch.

The album also contains messages that appear to be from other notable personalities, including the current U.K. ambassador to the U.S., Peter Mandelson; Harvard law professor Alan Dershowitz, who was part of a legal team representing Trump during his first impeachment trial; and billionaire retail magnate Les Wexner.

The caption under the novelty-check photo appears to be written by Joel Pashcow, a Mar-a-Lago club member and former chairman of a New York real estate company. The woman's name and photo are redacted in the caption and the image. Lawyers for Epstein's estate removed the names and photos of women and minors who appeared in the book so possible victims of Epstein could not be identified.

Other drawings in the book make Trump's alleged contribution look tame. They include a disturbing illustration of Epstein handing out balloons to young girls. Fox did mention the drawings of Epstein being massaged by several topless women around a pool, and the one of a zebra having sex with a lion. How much time until it's suggested that it could be the work of Biden's autopen? 5,4,3...

This story originally appeared in Los Angeles Times .

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Epstein accuser memoir to be published posthumously

( The Hill ) - One of Jeffrey Epstein's most prominent accusers , the late Virginia Roberts Giuffre, wrote a memoir before her death that is scheduled to be published this fall, announced the publishing house Alfred A. Knopf.

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The 400-page book, "Nobody's Girl: A Memoir of Surviving Abuse and Fighting for Justice," is scheduled to be released on Oct. 21.

"Giuffre offers an unsparing account of her time with Jeffrey Epstein and Ghislaine Maxwell—from Epstein's Palm Beach mansion to his Upper East Side townhouse to his private jets and island, from meeting politicians and CEOs at a sprawling New Mexico ranch to spending a now-infamous evening with Prince Andrew in London," the publisher said in a statement.

"Giuffre shares intimate, disturbing, and heartbreaking new details about her time with Epstein, Maxwell, and their many well-known friends, including Prince Andrew, about whom she speaks publicly for the first time since their out-of-court settlement in 2022," it added.

Giuffre filed a lawsuit against Prince Andrew in 2021, after alleging that he sexually abused her when she was a teenager. Giuffre said Epstein introduced her to Prince Andrew in London in 2001 and said Epstein's longtime partner, Ghislaine Maxwell, forced her to have sex with Prince Andrew.

Prince Andrew has denied meeting Giuffre, saying it "didn't happen." They reached a settlement " In principle " in early 2022.

Giuffre collaborated over the course of four years with author and journalist Amy Wallace to write the memoir before the Epstein accuser died by suicide on April 25.

In late March, Giuffre was struck by a school bus and said she was given four days to live after going into renal failure.

Days after the crash, Giuffre wrote an email expressing her "heartfelt wish that this work be published, regardless of my circumstances at the time," according to the publisher, which included the email in its statement.

"The content of this book is crucial, as it aims to shed light on the systemic failures that allow the trafficking of vulnerable individuals across borders. It is imperative that the truth is understood and that the issues surrounding this topic are addressed, both for the sake of justice and awareness," Giuffre wrote in the email.

"In the event of my passing, I would like to ensure that NOBODY'S GIRL is still released. I believe it has the potential to impact many lives and foster necessary discussions about these grave injustices," Giuffre, who came out publicly with her accusation in 2015 and became an advocate for sex trafficking survivors, added.

She has said Epstein and Maxwell, his longtime partner, hired her as a masseuse after their introduction at President Trump's Mar-a-Lago club in the early 2000s when she was a teenager.

Epstein was sentenced to 18 months in jail for soliciting prostitution in 2009 and died in prison while awaiting trial on sex trafficking charges.

Maxwell is serving a sentence after her conviction on sex trafficking charges.

Copyright 2025 Nexstar Media, Inc. All rights reserved. This material may not be published, broadcast, rewritten, or redistributed.

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How Trump's demand that everyone stop talking about Epstein is playing on Fox News

President Donald Trump's allies at Fox News — and other major MAGA media figures — are obeying his marching orders to stop talking about Jeffrey Epstein , the disgraced financier who was awaiting trial on charges that he sexually abused dozens of underage girls when he died by suicide in jail in 2019.

Prominent MAGA voices were in near-open rebellion last week after the Justice Department and Federal Bureau of Investigation issued in an unsigned July 6 memo stating that there was no "credible evidence found that Epstein blackmailed prominent individuals as part of his actions," and that investigators "concluded that Jeffrey Epstein committed suicide in his cell." Those conclusions contradicted dogmas pushed by Trumpist talking heads — including FBI Deputy Director Dan Bongino. Within days, many MAGA diehards were calling for Resignation of Attorney General Pam Bondi or firing.

By Sunday, the simmering discontent seemed primed to boil over, As Fox News anchors and prominent pro-Trump speakers at a summit organized by Charlie Kirk's Turning Point USA warned that if Trump didn't listen to his base, he risked losing them. But the president instead issued a statement that evening in which he stood by Bondi and demanded said that his allies "Do not waste time and energy" on the Epstein saga.

Trump's statement put to the test the MAGA pundits and influencers who had told their audiences for years that wealthy elites, corrupt officials, and the mainstream press were covering up for Epstein. And most of them, particularly Fox's anchors and hosts, promptly bent the knee.

Epstein's name was mentioned only eight times across the network’s programming on Monday, with its first reference coming well into the 6 p.m. hour. By contrast, Fox name-checked former President Joe Biden 158 times that same day.

Jesse Watters, who holds the 8 p.m. time slot previously held by stars Bill O’Reilly and Tucker Carlson, provides a case study of the network's compliance. The Fox host mentioned Epstein's name across more than 100 episodes of his programs over the last six years. Watters said he was "leading the charge to expose Jeffrey Epstein's list of fixers, clients, and famous friends," unlike the corrupt mainstream press whose silence he claimed aided the "powerful people [who] want to keep you from knowing about Epstein's world."

But on Monday night, Watters met the demands of a powerful person with myriad, long-standing ties to the disgraced financier: Trump. The sole discussion The moment of the Epstein story on his broadcast came during a segment in which his producer interviewed beachgoers.

Watters' prime-time colleagues Sean Hannity and Greg Gutfeld also completely ignored the Epstein story on their Monday broadcasts. In the 7 p.m. slot, Laura Ingraham offered the following take As conservative influencers were eating their own about Epstein, the president was stealing the show on the one-year anniversary of the day he almost lost his life.

The silence from Watters and Hannity is particularly embarrassing because earlier this year both had claimed that members of the so-called "deep state" aimed to keep the Epstein documents from Bondi so she couldn't expose them. The new narrative the president laid out on Sunday — that the likes of former President Barack Obama, former Secretary of State Hillary Clinton, and a slew of supposed deep state officials "created" the so-called Epstein files in order to undermine the MAGA movement — contradicts the hosts’ story.

Outside the Fox News portion of the MAGA ecosystem, there has been somewhat more debate about the Justice Department memo. Some MAGA influencers pointed out the absurdity of Trump's new narrative. "Barack Obama wrote the Epstein files? LOL. This is outright embarrassing," commented. ed Candace Owens on X. Benny Johnson, responding during a livestream on Sunday, mentioned Trump's theory and remarked , "What?"

Others were even more critical, at times even implicating Trump himself. "Either Pam Bondi is royally screwed up ... or there is something there and it's being covered up and the president blessed it," said Megyn Kelly, a member of the diaspora of former Fox News hosts who now compete for its audience. Daily Wire podcaster Matt Walsh said, "There just is no option that allows you to just, you know, vindicate the Trump administration entirely."

But those cases seem like the exceptions — in general, MAGA commentators have either gone silent like Fox News or are publicly promoting the Trump line.

Is it time to move on from the Jeffrey Epstein case? asked Podcaster Dinesh D'Souza I want to argue that the answer is yes.

"I'm going to just have to defer to President Trump on this thing," Newsmax's Greg Kelly offered .

I'm done talking about Epstein for the time being, Kirk said Monday. "I'm gonna trust my friends in the administration" (though on Tuesday, Kirk claimed, When I said 'for the time being,' I was talking yesterday.

Cracks keep forming in the coalition that united around a shared hatred of the left and put Trump in office. Those fractures will almost certainly continue as his administration’s actions anger its various factions, and they may even come to threaten Trump's cultlike hold over the MAGA movement and the largely sycophantic right-wing media. But we're not there yet.

This article was originally published on newsrealtime

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Congress wants the Epstein files released. What is holding them back?

Congress wants the Jeffrey Epstein client list. Republicans, Democrats and even the speaker of the House are all calling for transparency. Despite that, the files about one of the most notorious sex traffickers of all time remain private, and the The White House wants everyone to move on.

Straight Arrow News spoke with members of Congress about the Epstein case, and it's clear they are not going to drop this.

"Democrats, Republicans, independents, think that the [Department of Justice] is not being transparent, and so that makes you want to pull the string more," said Rep. Jared Moskowitz, D-Fla.

Rep. Ro Khanna, D-Calif., introduced an amendment that would require the DOJ to release the Epstein files, but Republicans blocked a vote on the measure. Democrats are now criticizing their GOP colleagues who, for months, had said the information should be made public.

"Out of nowhere, it's like, don't pay attention to the man behind the curtain. There are no files, there was no Jeffrey Epstein, there was no list. In fact, Pam Bondi doesn't even have a desk," Moskowitz said.

Moskowitz is referring to Attorney General Pam Bondi's now-infamous answer to a simple question in an interview with Fox News on whether or not she will release the client list. She said, "It's sitting on my desk right now to review. That's been a directive by President Trump."

Republicans who spoke with Straight Arrow News on Capitol Hill are not happy that she is going back on her word.

"The Attorney General said she had a list on her desk, and then she didn't. I think she's way out of her league," Rep. Tim Burchett, R-Tenn., told SAN. "I just don't think, I don't think she was ready for prime time at that point."

"Pam Bondi, I don't know when she originally made the statement. I think she was talking about documents, I don't know if she was specific about a list or whatever. She needs to come forward and explain that to everyone," Speaker Mike Johnson, R-La., told Benny Johnson.

According to a report in the Daily Mail , Epstein's accomplice and facilitator, Ghislaine Maxwell is willing to speak to Congress about everything she knows.

Senator Josh Hawley, R-Mo., said she should be called to testify under oath.

"This is the worst, one of the worst human trafficking rings in American history, run by this scumbag. And I think the more we know about it, the more we get out there, the better it is," Hawley told SAN.

Other members of Congress said they don't trust her and that she is likely doing this in an attempt to get leniency.

"What would be her angle? Is she trying to get a better plea deal or something?" Burchett asked.

My question for that is, why is she not just talking to the press? She can say everything she needs to say to the press at any time," said Rep. Anna Paulina Luna, R-Fla. "And, I really think it was also interesting that she made this, apparently, request or statement within 24 hours of a Supreme Court ruling.

Maxwell is serving a 20-year prison sentence for sex trafficking minors. She's asking the Supreme Court to toss out her conviction, arguing that she should be protected by a 2007 non-prosecution agreement between Epstein and federal prosecutors in Florida.

As for the Epstein case, the DOJ released a memo Earlier this month, stating that there was no client list and that there will be no further prosecutions. Therefore, it is likely that Congress will need to bring new information to light.

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DOJ says there is no Jeffrey Epstein 'client list,' Bondi comes under fire

The Department of Justice said Monday that sex offender Jeffrey Epstein did not have a "client list" and was not murdered in prison.

The announcement comes after months of promises from Attorney General Pam Bondi and the DOJ that transparency was coming regarding an alleged list of nearly 200 names of prominent public figures associated with Epstein. It's the latest in a yearslong saga to uncover Epstein's crimes and controversy over how he died.

In a memo , the DOJ and FBI said they conducted an "exhaustive review" of investigations into Epstein's sex trafficking scandal. The review included digital and physical searches that uncovered a "significant amount of material" but no further information would be released to the public.

The DOJ said it combed through the material, much of which includes images and videos of victims who appear to be minors and evidence of "illegal child sex abuse material and other pornography."

"Teams of agents, analysts, attorneys and privacy and civil liberties experts combed through the digital and documentary evidence with the aim of providing as much information as possible to the public while simultaneously protecting victims," the memo said.

While it was reported for months that the Trump administration would release a list incriminating high-profile "clients" of Epstein, the DOJ said there was no list and no evidence that Epstein blackmailed prominent people.

The announcement has led to questions, especially after Bondi said in an interview with Fox News The client list was 'sitting on my desk right now to review.'

White House press secretary Karoline Leavitt was questioned by reporters on Monday after the memo's release.

This administration wants anyone who has ever committed a crime to be held accountable, and I would argue this administration has done more to lock up bad guys than certainly the previous administration, and the Trump administration is committed to truth and to transparency," Leavitt said in the briefing. "That's why the attorney general and the FBI director pledged at the president's direction to do an exhaustive review of all of the files related to Jeffrey Epstein's crimes and his death.

Leavitt argued the findings were "incredibly graphic" and not suitable for "public consumption."

Fox News' Peter Doocy questioned Leavitt about Bondi's statement regarding the client list.

She was talking about all of the paperwork, all of the documents related to Jeffrey Epstein's crimes. That's what the attorney general was referring to," Leavitt said. "And I'll let her speak for herself.

Several right-wing influencers have since criticized Bondi for the apparent change, saying President Donald Trump needs to fire her, The Guardian. reported .

Bondi addressed the concerns in a Cabinet meeting on Tuesday, clarifying that when she was asked earlier this year about the client list, her response referred to the entire file, as well as a file regarding the assassinations of John F. Kennedy and Martin Luther King.

Also to the tens of thousands of videos, they turned out to be child pornography downloaded by that disgusting Jeffrey Epstein," she said. "Child pornography is what they were. They were never going to be released, never going to see the light of day.

The review found that Epstein harmed more than 1,000 victims through his years of sex trafficking. The memo noted that the information obtained in the review was sensitive, including identifying information of the victims.

One of our highest priorities is combatting child exploitation and bringing justice to victims," the memo read. "Perpetuating unfounded theories about Epstein serves neither of those ends.

The DOJ said that while it wanted to keep the public informed about Epstein's crimes and the investigation, together with the FBI, they determined that "no further disclosure would be appropriate or warranted."

The FBI also denied theories that Epstein was killed in his cell at the Metropolitan Correctional Center in New York City in 2019. The agency stated that Epstein died by suicide, which is consistent with the findings of other agencies.

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