At least a half-dozen top officials in the current Trump administration have connections to Jeffrey Epstein, according to an NBC News review of some of the over 3 million documents the Justice Department has released.
The degree to which each individual was connected to Epstein varies significantly, from a single email to years of communications. President Donald Trump, who had a lengthy relationship with Epstein, is mentionedthousands of timesin the files. Trump has never been accused by authorities of any wrongdoing connected to Epstein, and has said he parted ways with him in the mid-2000s because he was a “creep.” He has also denied any wrongdoing.
During a testy oversight hearing on Wednesday. Rep. Becca Balint, D-Vt., pressed Attorney General Pam Bondi on whether any current administration officials have been questioned by the Justice Department about their ties to Epstein.
"I'm stunned that you want to continue talking about Epstein," Bondi replied while sidestepping the question.
In a post on Truth Social on Thursday, Trump praised Bondi's appearance at the Senate hearing and claimed that the files provide "conclusively" that he "has been 100% exonerated."
Some officials from previous Democratic administrations have appeared in the files — including former President Bill Clinton, his former Treasury Secretary Larry Summers, and former Obama White House counsel Kathy Ruemmler.
Ruemmler announced this week that she would leave her position as Goldman Sachs' top lawyer amid blowback over her extensive emails with Epstein. Ruemmler has said she was friendly with Epstein only in the context of being a criminal defense attorney and that she regrets ever having known him.
Summers announced in November that he was taking a leave of absence from his teaching at Harvard University and would step back from other public commitments. Summers said in November that he was "deeply ashamed" of emails that came out last year showing him corresponding with Epstein as recently as July 2019. He has not been accused of any wrongdoing in connection with Epstein's crimes.
Clinton has said that he cut ties with Epstein before the financier was accused in 2006 of having sex with a minor. His spokesperson said the emails "prove Bill Clinton did nothing and knew nothing." He has not been accused of any wrongdoing in connection with Epstein by authorities.
Two other ex-Trump administration officials — former DOGE chief Elon Musk and former chief strategist Steve Bannon — also made appearances in the files.Neither has been accused of any wrongdoing in connection with Epstein's crimes.
Alex Acosta, who was Trump’s Labor secretary during his first term, led the first federal criminal probe into Epstein as U.S. attorney for the Southern District of Florida. Acosta approved a much-maligned secret nonprosecutorial agreement that allowed Epstein to plead guilty in 2008 to lesser state charges, which helped him avoid potentially decades of jail time. Acosta has defended the plea deal and said that his office "acted appropriately" given the context of the 2008 case. “Times have changed, and coverage of this case has certainly changed,” he said in 2019 after Epstein's arrest in New York.
Reached for comment, a White House spokesperson referred NBC News to remarks Trump made on Thursday about Commerce Secretary Howard Lutnick, who admitted this week to visiting Epstein's island in 2012.
“No I wasn’t aware of it,” he said of Lutnick’s trip, adding, “I actually haven’t spoken to him about it, I wasn’t, but from what I hear, he was there with his wife and children. And I guess in some cases some people were. I wasn’t. I was never there. Somebody will someday say that. I was never there.”
No major U.S. political figure has been accused by law enforcement of any crimes and all have denied wrongdoing. A joint DOJ-FBI memo released last year found that there was no evidence of a so-called "client list" and that no one else would be investigated in connection with Epstein.
Here's a look at administration officials' ties to Epstein and his co-conspirator in a sex tracking ring, Ghislaine Maxwell:
Centers for Medicare & Medicaid Services Administrator Mehmet Oz
A 2016 email from the former TV personality to Epstein appeared to contain an invitation to a Valentine's Day party in 2016 — three years before Epstein was charged in a federal sex trafficking case in New York, and eight years after he pleaded guilty in Florida to procuring a person under 18 for prostitution and felony solicitation of prostitution.
Dr. Mehmet Oz.John Lamparski / Getty Images
"Mehmet and Lisa Oz's Valentine's Celebration," read the subject line of the February 2016 email to Epstein. The email shows a link to a Paperless Post invitation that is no longer active. Another link in the email appears to show the couple's Palm Beach address for the event.
It's unclear if Epstein attended the event. The Centers for Medicare & Medicaid Services did not respond to a request for comment.
Deputy Secretary of Defense Stephen Feinberg
Stephen Feinberg, the billionaire financier who's now the No. 2 official at the Pentagon, makes numerous appearances in the newly released files in connection with the business he founded, Cerberus Capital Management.
Deputy Secretary of Defense Stephen Feinberg.Win McNamee / Getty Images file
Details of their connection are murky: there are numerous business documents involving Cerberus that include Feinberg's name over a span of years between 2009 and 2018, including some involving Deutsche Bank, one of the banks Epstein was known to do business with. The documents contain an email exchange between officials at Deutsche Bank in which the bank’s compliance staff appear to be conducting a review of Cerberus and Feinberg’s accounts.
It's unclear why the documents were in the Epstein files.
Cerberus did not respond to a request for comment and a spokesperson for the Pentagon declined comment.
RFK Jr.
Health and Human Services Secretary Robert F. Kennedy Jr. also appears in the files, both in Epstein's flight logs and in an email exchange between Epstein and Maxwell.
Epstein wrote Maxwell in 2012 that he'd recently gone "dinosaur and fossil hunting on the ranch" with a fossil expert, and she replied, "Love that — didn’t we go fossil hunting with him and Bobby Kennedy in NDakota?"
Secretary of Health and Human Services Robert F. Kennedy, Jr.Evan Vucci / AP file
Maxwell also discussed Kennedy and the trip during an interview with Deputy Attorney General Todd Blanche last year. "Bobby Kennedy knew him," she said, referring to Epstein. "Because we went on a trip together. Was — we went to — dinosaur bone hunting in the Dakotas," she added, estimating the trip took place in 1993 or 1994. She said she never saw Kennedy do anything inappropriate.
HHS did not respond to a request for comment, but Kennedy had previously acknowledged he'd flown on Epstein's plane in the 1990s and gone on the dinosaur hunt.
“My wife knew his girlfriend Ghislaine Maxwell and they offered us a ride when we were going down to see my mother," he told NewsNation in 2024. "I was with two children and my wife … on the plane at that time. I knew nothing about Jeffrey Epstein.”
Kennedy said his second trip with Epstein came “one or two years later.”
“We took my kids fossil hunting in Pine Ridge Reservation in South Dakota. That was the extent of anything that I had to do with Jeffrey Epstein’s airplane,” he told the network, adding that besides running into him at social events, he “had no relationship with him.”
Commerce Secretary Howard Lutnick
The commerce secretary was shown in the emails to have a longer history with Epstein than he'd previously claimed.
Lutnick told the New York Post in October that he thought Epstein, his former next-door neighbor, was “disgusting” and that he wanted nothing to do with Epstein after the financier made an inappropriate remark in his presence in 2005.
“So I was never in the room with him socially, for business or even philanthropy. That guy was there, I wasn’t going ’cause he is gross,” Lutnick told the paper.
The files, however, showed Lutnick and Epstein emailing in 2012 about a possible boat trip to Epstein’s private island.
Commerce Secretary Howard Lutnick.Evan Vucci / AP file
His agency initially sidestepped questions about whether he took the trip, but Lutnick acknowledged the visit during a Senate hearing on Tuesday.
“My wife was with me, as were my four children and nannies. I had another couple with, they were there as well, with their children, and we had lunch on the island — that is true — for an hour,” he said.
He said there was nothing “untoward” about the trip, but could not recall why they did it.
The Commerce Department said in a statement after the emails were released that “Secretary Lutnick had limited interactions with Mr. Epstein in the presence of his wife and has never been accused of wrongdoing.”
Secretary of the Navy John Phelan
Navy Secretary John Phelan's name appeared in a March 2006 flight manifest for Epstein's 727, which was coming to New York from London, according to a CNN review of Epstein-related documents released by the House Oversight Committee last year.
At the time, Phelan was working for MSD Capital, a private investment company serving billionaire Michael Dell. MSD Capital did not immediately respond to a request for comment.
Secretary of the U.S. Navy John Phelan.Andrew Harnik / Getty Images file
NBC News has not independently verified the report. The Navy did not respond to a request for comment.
Rep. Balint asked Bondi if DOJ had asked Phelan about his "ties to Jeffrey Epstein" at Wednesday's hearing. "I don't know whether he has addressed those or not," Bondi said.
Fed nominee Kevin Warsh
On Jan. 30, Trump announced on social media that he was nominating Kevin Warsh, a former Fed board governor, to be the central bank's next chairman. Hours later, the Justice Department released millions more Epstein-related documents.
One of those included a 2010 email, where a redacted sender forwarded Epstein a list of people labeled “St. Barth’s Christmas 2010.” Warsh is listed on page four with a note: “House near Isle de France.”
Kevin Warsh.Tierney L. Cross / Bloomberg via Getty Images
It is unknown whether Warsh ever took the trip or went to St. Barts. NBC News reached out to both Warsh and the White House for more information at the time, but neither responded.
Former DOGE head Elon Musk
Elon Musk, who headed the Department of Government Efficiency as a special government employee last year, made numerous appearances in the newly released files in friendly-sounding email exchanges with Epstein in 2012 and 2013.
In a November 2012 email, Epstein wrote to Musk, “how many people will you be for the heli to the island.” Musk responds: “Probably just Talulah and me. What day/night will be the wildest party on your island?”
In December 2013, Musk wrote, “Will be in the BVI/St Bart’s area over the holidays. Is there a good time to visit?” Epstein responded, “any day 1st — 8th. play it by ear if you want. always space for you.”
Elon Musk.Chip Somodevilla / Getty Images
NBC News hasn’t verified whether Musk traveled to the island and he is not accused of any wrongdoing. Musk told Vanity Fair in a 2019 interview that Epstein “tried repeatedly to get me to visit his island. I declined.”
After the emails were released, Musk posted on X, “I knew that I would be smeared relentlessly, despite never having attended his parties or been on his ‘Lolita Express’ plane or set foot on his creepy island or done anything wrong at all.”
Former White House chief strategist Steve Bannon
The new files show a deeper relationship than previously known between Epstein and Bannon, a longtime Trump ally who served as White House chief strategist during his first administration.
Bannon has said he was working on a documentary about Epstein, and the release shows they frequently emailed and texted each other between January 2018 and June 2019, days before Epstein was arrested on federal sex trafficking charges.
“Now you can understand why Trump wakes up in the middle of the night sweating when he hears you and I are friends,” Epstein texted to Bannon on June 28 of that year, according to messages released by the DOJ.
An April 2019 text shows Bannon, who's helped stoke conspiracy theories about Epstein, offering to help “rebuild your image.”
Bannon has not been accused of any wrongdoing in connection with Epstein’s crimes. He did not respond to requests for comment.
