Featured Image Credit: Nathan Howard/Getty Images
Topics: Donald Trump, Politics, Jeffrey Epstein, US News, News
Rhiannon Ingle
Topics: Donald Trump, Politics, Jeffrey Epstein, US News, News
United States President Donald Trump has claimed he has been 'totally exonerated' from the Epstein files controversy.
While recently speaking to reporters during a press briefing on Air Force One, the 79-year-old Republican declared in an X video: "I have nothing to hide. I've been exonerated. I have nothing to do with Jeffrey Epstein."
He added: "They went in hoping that they'd find it and found just the opposite. I've been totally exonerated."
Trump's name is mentioned a lot in the 3.5 million files dropped last month (30 January) following the November passing of the Epstein Files Transparency Act.
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Following his review of parts of the unredacted documents that feature the US President, Senior Democrat on the House Judiciary Committee, Jamie Raskin claimed that Trump is mentioned 'over a million times'.
Being named in the files does not, on its own, indicate wrongdoing.
The latest release consists of 3,000,000 documents, 180,000 images and 2,000 videos, an alarming number of which explicitly - or briefly - mentioned Hollywood A-listers, royals and world leaders, including Trump himself.
Sky News reports that a search for Trump in the files returns 5,176 results, with over 38,000 varied mentions of his name.
The New York Times, meanwhile, claims to have identified a surplus of 5,300 references to Trump in the publicly released files that reference, including mentions of his Mar-a-Lago, Florida, property and his wife, Melania Trump (as cited by ABC).
When the Department of Justice (DOJ) released a large batch of Epstein files in December, it flagged that the material contained 'untrue and sensationalist claims' about Trump.
Soon after, the DOJ posted on its official X account, saying some allegations in the latest batch referring to the president were false, though it did not clarify which ones.
"The Department of Justice has officially released nearly 30,000 more pages of documents related to Jeffrey Epstein," it wrote at the time.
"Some of these documents contain untrue and sensationalist claims made against President Trump that were submitted to the FBI right before the 2020 election. To be clear: the claims are unfounded and false, and if they had a shred of credibility, they certainly would have been weaponised against President Trump already.
"Nevertheless, out of our commitment to the law and transparency, the DOJ is releasing these documents with the legally required protections for Epstein’s victims."
Trump, who socialised and partied with Epstein in the 1990s and 2000s before their fallout, has continuously denied any wrongdoing or any knowledge of Epstein's crimes.
It is also vital to remember that being named in the files relating to Epstein’s case is not an automatic indication of wrongdoing.