The White House in Washington D.C., the United States. File photo: Xinhua

 
When Justice Department officials reviewed what Attorney General Pam Bondi called a "truckload" of documents related to Jeffrey Epstein earlier this year, they discovered that Donald Trump's name appeared multiple times, the Wall Street Journal reported on Wednesday, quoting senior administration officials as saying. The White House called it "another fake news story."

Bondi and her deputy informed the president at a meeting in the White House in May that his name was in the Epstein files. Many other high-profile figures were also named, the officials said. Being mentioned in the records isn't a sign of wrongdoing, the Wall Street Journal reported.

At the meeting, the officials told Trump that senior Justice Department officials didn't plan to release any more documents related to the investigation of the convicted sex offender because the material contained child pornography and victims' personal information. Trump said at the meeting he would defer to the Justice Department's decision to not release any further files.

A House subcommittee on Wednesday voted to subpoena the Department of Justice for files in the sex trafficking investigation into Epstein, AP reported. 

"This is another fake news story, just like the previous story by The Wall Street Journal," said White House communications director Steven Cheung.
 
Last week, Trump filed a $10bn defamation lawsuit against the Wall Street Journal and its owner, Rupert Murdoch, over an article about an alleged sexually suggestive letter bearing Trump's name that was included in a 2003 album compiled for Epstein's birthday. The president has denied writing the letter and has since sued the Journal.

The White House subsequently banned one of the Journal's reporters from Air Force One for an upcoming trip to Scotland.

US media CNBC reported that recently, Trump is facing backlash from MAGA supporters about the handling of files related to Epstein.

The controversy has also created a major fissure between Trump and his loyal base, with some of his most vocal supporters slamming the White House for the way it has handled the case, and questioning why Trump would not want the documents made public. 

Epstein died by suicide in 2019 while awaiting trial on sex trafficking charges, to which he had pleaded not guilty. In a separate case, Epstein pleaded guilty in 2008 to a prostitution charge in Florida and received a 13-month sentence in what is now widely regarded as too lenient a deal with prosecutors, Reuters reported.

Global Times