Susie Wiles, President Donald Trump's chief of staff, slammed Attorney General Pam Bondi over her handling of the Epstein Files, saying she "completely whiffed on appreciating that that was the very targeted group that cared about this."
"First, she gave them binders full of nothingness. And then she said that the witness list, or the client list, was on her desk. There is no client list, and it sure as hell wasn't on her desk," Wiles told Vanity Fair as part of a sprawling article that compiled 11 interviews throughout the Trump administration.
Wiles went on to acknowledge that Trump is on the Epstein Files, not noted "he's not in the file doing anything awful." She also rebuked Trump's claim that the files included incriminating evidence about former President Bill Clinton. "The president was wrong about that," she added.
The handling of the Epstein files has immersed the Trump administration in controversy, with criticism even from some Republicans. The Justice Department is facing a December 19 deadline to hand over all files.
The latest development regarding the issue took place last week when the House Oversight Committee Democrats released a trove of previously unseen photographs from Epstein's personal collection. They feature Trump and Clinton, among others.
A total of 19 selected images from a vast collection of more than 95,000 photographs obtained from Epstein's estate have now been made public. The release is part of a broader effort to pressure the Department of Justice to comply with the Epstein Files Transparency Act, a law signed earlier this year that compels the government to publish documents tied to Epstein and his co-conspirator Ghislaine Maxwell. That act also paved the way for the unsealing of grand jury materials, though with protections for survivors' identities.
Democratic lawmakers have described such visuals as "disturbing" and part of a broader pattern of demanding transparency about Epstein's relationships with elite networks.
The small sample of other famous or influential figures featured in the photos also includes Bill Gates, Woody Allen, Steve Bannon, and Larry Summers. Some images capture individuals aboard Epstein's private jet, nicknamed the Lolita Express, or at events with individuals whose identities are obscured.
Republican lawmakers counter that the selection of photos is cherry-picked to create a misleading narrative, pointing out that none of the images released so far imply criminal conduct by those pictured.
Other documents released by Democrats in November include a 2011 message in which Epstein told his longtime associate Ghislaine Maxwell that a victim had "spent hours at my house" with Trump, describing him as "the dog that hasn't barked." Maxwell responded: "I have been thinking about that ..." The names of alleged victims were redacted.
In a separate exchange from December 2015, author Michael Wolff told Epstein he heard CNN might question Trump about his relationship with him. Epstein replied: "If we were to craft an answer for him, what do you think it should be?" Wolff said Trump should answer publicly and risk "hanging himself," noting it could create "PR and political currency" for Epstein.
Another email from January 2019 shows Epstein appeared to dispute reports that Trump had barred him from Mar-a-Lago, writing: "Trump said he asked me to resign, never a member ever. Of course he knew about the girls as he asked ghislaine to stop." The full context of the exchange is unclear.
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