In an interview with Lex Fridman’s podcast, Republican presidential candidate Donald Trump suggested that if he were to be elected president, he would make public the so-called “black book” containing the client list of deceased sex trafficker Jeffrey Epstein. Epstein was a financier and socialite who introduced dozens of young women – some of whom were underage at the time – to the rich and famous, flying them to his private island in the Caribbean aboard the infamous ‘Lolita Express’ jet.
I never went to his island, fortunately,” Trump said during the interview. But a lot of people did.” He referred to the list of those who traveled to Epstein’s Little St. James as “very interesting” and hinted that it may be released should he become president.
Comparing the release of this information with declassifying documents related to President John F. Kennedy’s 1963 assassination, Trump expressed his willingness to consider making Epstein’s client list public. He mentioned trying to release the Kennedy files during his previous presidency (2017-2021), only to be persuaded by US intelligence that doing so would be damaging.
Epstein’s arrest in 2019 was largely due to revelations about him luring young women, many below the legal age of consent, and pimping them out to powerful acquaintances. FBI searches of his New York residence and Caribbean island reportedly uncovered videos potentially containing compromising material on these “guests.
Despite Epstein’s death in a Manhattan cell in August 2019, officially due to suicide, the evidence remained under lock and key. His accomplice and sometime girlfriend, Ghislaine Maxwell, was arrested in 2020 and eventually convicted of child sex trafficking, receiving a 20-year prison sentence. While some names of the trafficked teens have become public knowledge, the identities of those they were trafficked to remain shrouded in secrecy.
As Donald Trump continues his bid for the presidency, it remains unclear whether he would indeed make good on his promise to release Epstein’s black book should he be successful. If he does, the potential ramifications could reach far and wide, exposing a dark underbelly of power and privilege that has remained hidden from public view for years.