What Are the Epstein Files? A Timeline

The “Epstein files” is how the world has come to know the thousands of pages of documents related to two criminal investigations into sex trafficking by financier and friend to the rich, famous, and powerful Jeffrey Epstein. What’s in those files, who is named and in what context, and whether they should be released to the public became a topic of obsessive conversation on both sides of the political aisle after Epstein’s death in 2019. But in 2025 those questions and others roiled the second administration of U.S. Pres. Donald Trump as even some of Trump’s most loyal supporters expressed a sense of betrayal at his administration’s reluctance to release information related to the Epstein case.

On November 18, 2025, in a rare display of bipartisan unity, the House of Representatives voted 427–1 to release the documents; the Senate quickly followed suit and Trump signed the legislation. On December 19, 2025, in accordance with the Epstein Files Transparency Act, the Department of Justice released hundreds of thousands of documents. Those files included some never-before-seen photographs of former U.S. Pres. Bill Clinton and other celebrities, but otherwise were heavily redacted, drawing criticism from Democratic and some Republican lawmakers as well as Epstein survivors. A subsequent release of some 30,000 pages of documents included mentions of Trump flying on Epstein’s plane in the 1990s. On January 30, 2026, the Justice Department released an additional three million documents, indicating that would be the last major production of documents.

In February 2026, Andrew Mountbatten-Windsor was arrested on suspicion that he shared confidential official documents with Epstein. The arrest of the former Prince Andrew, long a central figure in the Epstein scandal, represented a stunning turn in the case.

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This timeline explores a scandal decades in the making.

1980s–2000: Jeffrey Epstein’s rise to prominence

The meteoric rise of Jeffrey Epstein began in the 1980s when, after a stint with Wall Street firm Bear Stearns, Epstein struck out on his own, partnering with others and ultimately running his own financial firm. His success made him a millionaire many times over—he owned one of the largest private residences in Manhattan, New York, and one of the U.S. Virgin Islands—and as such he moved in circles of wealth and influence. Among those he socialized and did business with were Donald Trump, Pres. Bill Clinton, Michael Jackson, Prince Andrew, and others. This involvement is known because parts of the Epstein files have been released in response to questions raised by journalists and Epstein’s accusers. The documents that have been released do not implicate Trump, Clinton, or Jackson in any illegal behavior. Andrew has denied any wrongdoing. However in October 2025 King Charles stripped Andrew of his “prince” title because of his ties to Epstein.

A visual history of the Epstein files: The people and places that define a scandal

Throughout the 1990s Trump and Epstein socialized, and Trump sometimes hosted Epstein at his Mar-a-Lago estate in Palm Beach, Florida, including at a party with NFL cheerleaders. Trump and Epstein were also the only two guests at a so-called competition to choose calendar models. On a number of those occasions, young women accused Trump of misconduct, which he has denied. In a four-year period in the 1990s, Trump flew at least seven times on Epstein’s private jet, according to flight logs that are also part of the released files. The files also show that Clinton flew on the Epstein jet in the 2000s after he left the White House. Flight logs indicate at least 17 flights with Clinton aboard to locales including Siberia, Morocco, China, and Armenia. A spokesperson for the former president has said the trips were related to the Clinton Foundation.

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2000–04: From “terrific guy” to “persona non grata”—with a birthday card in between

The Trump-Epstein relationship continued into the 2000s, including several key events that would capture public and media attention decades later. In 2000 a 16-year-old named Virginia Giuffre was working at Mar-a-Lago when Ghislaine Maxwell, Jeffrey Epstein’s longtime partner, saw her reading a massage manual and invited her to become Epstein’s masseuse. Giuffre, who would sue Epstein in 2009 and Maxwell in 2015, said Epstein and Maxwell then recruited her into a sex-trafficking ring during which she was “passed around like a platter of fruit” to Epstein’s influential friends. Giuffre may have been at the center of the eventual collapse of the relationship between Donald Trump and Epstein. Trump said in July 2025 that the falling out was because Epstein “did something that was inappropriate. He hired help, and I said, ‘Don’t ever do that again.’ He stole people that worked for me.…And I threw him out of the place, persona non grata.” Trump later made clear that he was referring to Giuffre and others. A White House spokesperson said earlier in July, “The fact is that the President kicked him out of his club for being a creep.”

However, The Washington Post had previously reported that the friendship ended over a business deal that turned nasty. In late 2004 Epstein and Trump bid against each other for a key piece of Palm Beach real estate, an oceanfront estate ironically named Maison de l’Amitie, or “House of Friendship.” Trump ultimately won the property at auction for more than $41 million in what the trustee of the auction called “two very large Palm Beach egos going at it.”

Regardless of the cause, it is clear that by the end of 2004 the friendship had fractured. Before the schism, however, in a 2002 interview with New York Magazine for a profile of Epstein, Trump seemed to inadvertently confirm what would later become public knowledge through the files:

I’ve known Jeff for 15 years. Terrific guy. He’s a lot of fun to be with. It is even said that he likes beautiful women as much as I do, and many of them are on the younger side.

And in July 2025 The Wall Street Journal reported that Trump was one of nearly 50 celebrities and business executives who contributed in 2003 to a “bawdy” 50th birthday album for Epstein. Those who sent birthday wishes included Bill Clinton, designer Vera Wang, and famed attorney Alan Dershowitz.

In September 2025 the Epstein estate released a redacted version of the birthday album to the House Oversight Committee, which had subpoenaed it. It included a crude outline of a woman’s body with a greeting typed inside. The last line of the greeting reads: “A pal is a wonderful thing. Happy birthday - and may every day be another wonderful secret.” At the bottom is a signature that appears to be Trump’s. When The Journal first published the account, Trump denied the story and sued the paper. After the release of the drawing, the White House issued a statement saying the president “did not draw this picture, and he did not sign it.” In April 2026, a federal judge dismissed the president’s $10 million lawsuit, saying the lawsuit failed to show “actual malice” needed for such a libel suit. Trump vowed to refile the suit.

2005–09: Controversial conviction

Just weeks after the ill-fated auction of the Palm Beach property, Jeffrey Epstein came under scrutiny by Palm Beach police, first because of a tip about young women coming and going from the Epstein house. Several months later a woman reported to police that her 14-year-old stepdaughter had been paid to massage Epstein while she was naked. That report led to other teenagers coming forward to tell police that they had been paid to massage Epstein. How prosecutors handled the case would have repercussions more than a decade later. When a grand jury indicted Epstein in 2006 on one count of soliciting prostitution, the relatively trivial nature of the charge drew complaints that Epstein had been given special treatment.

In 2007 federal prosecutors seemed ready to indict Epstein on perhaps as many as 60 federal charges. Epstein’s lawyers, including Alan Dershowitz, sought a plea deal in a series of negotiations with the U.S. attorney in Miami, Alexander Acosta, to avoid federal charges. In 2008 Epstein pleaded guilty to two state charges: soliciting prostitution and soliciting prostitution from a minor. He was sentenced to 18 months in prison but was allowed to go to work at his office during the day and return to prison at night. No federal charges were brought, and the deal included a nonprosecution agreement that granted immunity to Epstein, four named coconspirators, and “any potential co-conspirators.” Epstein’s victims were not told of the agreement, and it was sealed.

He was released after 13 months in prison, but it became clear that his legal problems were far from over. In the next few years he settled multiple civil suits with his victims, including one identified as Jane Doe 102. In 2009 the nonprosecution agreement was unsealed.

2011–17: The Giuffre case

In 2011 the identity of Jane Doe 102 became public when Virginia Giuffre sold her story and a now-infamous photograph of her as a teenager with Prince Andrew’s arm around her waist to a British newspaper, The Mail on Sunday. (Jeffrey Epstein had settled the civil suit with Giuffre in 2009, paying her $500,000.) In 2014 Giuffre also accused Alan Dershowitz, saying that Epstein had trafficked her to him, and sued him for defamation in 2019. Dershowitz denied the allegations, and in 2022 Giuffre dropped her suit, saying, “I now recognize I may have made a mistake in identifying Mr. Dershowitz.”

In 2015 Giuffre sued Ghislaine Maxwell for defamation when Maxwell said that Giuffre was lying about having been trafficked as part of a sex ring run by Epstein and Maxwell. Epstein had sought to avoid testifying as part of the lawsuit, and ultimately Maxwell settled the case. But The Miami Herald and investigative reporter Julie K. Brown filed to have the records in the case unsealed, citing the public’s right to know about the abuse of “dozens of underage minors.” (Giuffre died by suicide in 2025.)

2018–19: Investigation, arrest, and Epstein’s death

In late 2018 The Miami Herald published Brown’s investigative work, which examined Alexander Acosta’s role in the controversial plea deal. (By now, Acosta was serving as U.S. secretary of labor in Donald Trump’s first administration.) In her reporting Brown spoke with about 80 women who said that they were sexually abused by Jeffrey Epstein between 2001 and 2006. The reporting began to connect the dots between Epstein’s actions and his social circle and prompted questions of how his high-profile friends could have been unaware of these activities. (In 2026, Brown was awarded a special citation by the Board of the Pulitzer Prizes saying her work continues “to reverberate around the world.”

On July 6, 2019, Epstein was arrested and charged with two federal crimes, sex trafficking of minors and conspiracy to commit sex trafficking of minors. The charges alleged that some of his victims were just 14 years old. Days later Acosta resigned his position as questions mounted over his handling of the Florida prosecution. On August 10, 2019, Epstein was found dead in his jail cell. An investigation ruled that his death was suicide, but conspiracy theorists have nevertheless pushed unfounded claims that Epstein was killed.

In May 2026, a federal judge released what was purported to be a suicide note written by Epstein before a July 2019 failed suicide attempt. It had not previously been made public. While it was not immediately authenticated as being written by Epstein, it read in part: “They investigated me for months — FOUND NOTHING!!! … It is a treat to be able to choose one’s time to say goodbye.”

2020–24: Calls to release the files

In 2020 Ghislaine Maxwell was charged with a variety of sex crimes, including trafficking, conspiracy, and transporting minors for the purpose of illegal sexual activity. She was convicted in 2021 and sentenced in 2022 to 20 years in prison. In 2020 Donald Trump said of Maxwell, “I do wish her well. I’m not looking for anything bad for her.” While running for president in 2024, Trump ambivalently said that he would release the Epstein files in a Fox News interview. “I guess I would,” he said, before saying that he wouldn’t want people’s lives disrupted by “phony stuff in there.” He then ended with “but I think I would [release them].”

It was during this time that some of Trump’s most ardent supporters, some of whom would go on to serve in his second administration, called publicly for the release of the Epstein files. In 2023 Kash Patel, who in 2025 became Trump’s director of the FBI, appeared on Glenn Beck’s radio show. When Beck asked about the whereabouts of Jeffrey Epstein’s “black book,” which purportedly listed high-profile clients, Patel’s response was, “That’s under direct control of the director of the FBI.” In early 2024 more than 4,500 pages of documents from the Virginia Giuffre suit were released, and although they named some 150 individuals, they were heavily redacted, adding to the calls for full disclosure. Patel’s deputy at the FBI, Dan Bongino, who has long questioned whether Epstein’s death was actually by suicide, hosted his own podcast before taking up his position in Trump’s second administration. In September 2024 Bongino talked on his show about the need to release the files:

Folks, the Epstein client list is a huge deal because it speaks to an enormous problem we have in this country. It is that there is a connected class of insiders that feel that they can get away with anything, because they can.

2025: From “declassified” binders to Transparency Act

Early in the second Trump administration, the release of the Epstein documents seemed imminent. In February 2025 Attorney General Pam Bondi invited a group of MAGA activists to the White House, where she distributed binders labeled “The Epstein Files: Phase 1” and “Declassified.” But although the binders included about 200 pages of documents, little of it was new, and none of it was what conservatives had been calling for. The release came almost a week after Bondi appeared on Fox News and was asked if the administration planned to release the Epstein client list. “It’s sitting on my desk right now to review,” she said. She has subsequently said that she meant the broader file, not a specific client list.

But the frenzied energy to release documents slowed until, on July 7, the Justice Department issued a two-page unsigned memo that stated there was no client list, Jeffrey Epstein had killed himself, and no further disclosure of the contents of the Epstein file documents “would be appropriate or warranted.” Later in July The Wall Street Journal reported that Bondi had told Donald Trump in May that his name appeared in some of the documents that have not been released. The context in which his name allegedly appeared or the significance of it was not clear. Trump has denied that Bondi told him his name was in the files.

Even as the administration tried to calm the crisis by calling on federal courts to unseal grand jury transcripts, Rep. Thomas Massie, a Kentucky Republican, and Rep. Ro Khanna, a California Democrat, teamed up on bipartisan legislation calling for the release of the Epstein files, excluding elements that would identify or harm victims. Instead of having the House vote on the bill, Speaker Mike Johnson sent the chamber home for their August recess early. At the same time, in a highly unusual move, Todd Blanche, Bondi’s deputy, spent two days talking to Ghislaine Maxwell in prison. Some question if what Maxwell would say to the government can be trusted because she could benefit from a presidential pardon. Shortly after speaking to Blanche, Maxwell was moved from a Florida federal prison to a minimum-security facility in Texas. In October 2025 the Supreme Court refused to hear an appeal to Maxwell’s conviction, making a pardon from Trump her likely only alternative to serving out her 20-year sentence.

The birthday card controversy

Another element that added to the swirling controversy was the July 2025 reporting by The Wall Street Journal that Donald Trump was one of nearly 50 well-known individuals who contributed in 2003 to a “bawdy” 50th birthday album for Jeffrey Epstein. Those who sent birthday wishes included Bill Clinton, designer Vera Wang, and attorney Alan Dershowitz. Trump denied the story and sued the paper and two of its reporters.

But the “birthday book” was back in the headlines when in September 2025 the Epstein estate released a redacted version of the birthday album to the House Oversight Committee which had subpoenaed it. Included was a crude drawing of the silhouette of a woman’s body with a greeting typed inside. The last line of the greeting reads: “A pal is a wonderful thing. Happy birthday - and may every day be another wonderful secret.” Centered at the bottom of the drawing is what appears to be Trump’s signature. Trump continued to deny that he drew the image or signed the card. After the release of the drawing, the White House issued a statement saying the president “did not draw this picture, and he did not sign it.”

Passage of the Epstein Files Transparency Act

In November 2025, the controversy escalated on several fronts. With the House of Representatives back in session for the first time in almost eight weeks—a move many said was designed to avoid having to deal with the Epstein files controversy—Rep. Adelita Grijalva (D-Arizona), was sworn in, guaranteeing the 218 votes needed to allow the House to vote on a measure calling for the release of the documents.

At the same time the call from Jeffrey Epstein’s victims, estimated to number more than 1,000 girls and young women, to release the files gained momentum. The publication of Giuffre’s posthumous memoir Nobody’s Girl in October led King Charles to strip Andrew of his “prince” title. Other survivors of Epstein’s abuse went public in appearances on television, in Washington, D.C., and in a public service announcement in which they held photographs of themselves at the time of their abuse. The media barrage served to squelch the argument that releasing the files would harm the survivors.

What’s in the Bill?

The Epstein Files Transparency Act calls for the Department of Justice (DOJ) to release all documents related to Epstein’s business and criminal enterprise. Some of the specific items it covers include:

• All items related to the investigations of Epstein and Maxwell
• Travel records for all vehicles owned by Epstein, including jets and boats.
• Names of all “individuals, including government officials” referenced in the files
• Any plea deals related to Epstein and his associates
• Internal DOJ communications or other documents related to the destruction of contents of the files
• Documents relating to Epstein’s imprisonment and death.

Some items are exempted from release, including:

• Personally identifiable materials about victims
• Explicit depictions of child sexual abuse, death, or injury
• Subjects of ongoing investigations
• Topics that would jeopardize national security.

You can read the full text of the legislation here.

The same day as Grijalva’s swearing in, House Democrats released three emails in which Epstein seemed to indicate he believed Donald Trump was aware of the sex trafficking. (You can read those emails here.) Among the contents of the messages is an exchange between Ghislaine Maxwell and Epstein in which Epstein writes that a victim, whose name is redacted, “spent hours at my house with him,” meaning Trump. In another of the emails between Epstein and controversial Trump biographer Michael Wolff, Epstein wrote, again referencing Trump, “Of course he knew about the girls as he asked ghislaine to stop.” The day of the release Trump press secretary Karoline Leavitt said, “These emails prove absolutely nothing other than the fact that President Trump did nothing wrong.”

In response to the emails released by House Democrats, House Republicans released some 23,000 pages of documents from Epstein’s estate. Within those documents were emails between Epstein and other prominent figures, including former Harvard University president and Clinton Treasury Secretary Lawrence Summers, billionaire venture capitalist Peter Thiel, and former Trump adviser Steve Bannon.

In the wake of the release of the emails, Trump took to social media to call for an investigation into prominent Democrats who appear in the emails, including Bill Clinton and Summers. (Summers announced he was stepping away from his public duties in light of revelations in the 2025 emails.) Attorney General Pam Bondi said that an investigation would be launched despite the July Justice Department memo saying no further investigation was warranted.

On November 18, the House voted 427–1 on the bill to release all the Epstein files. (Only Republican Louisiana Rep. Clay Higgins voted “no.”) The Senate then unanimously agreed to send the legislation to Trump for his signature. The action came days after Trump, faced with the likelihood that most Republicans would vote to release the files, ended his opposition, saying “we have nothing to hide” and calling the scandal a “Democrat hoax.” The president signed the Epstein Files Transparency Act into law the next day.