Mark Epstein says he believes President Donald Trump was slow to back the release of documents tied to Jeffrey Epstein because the files may contain information Trump would rather keep private.
In a Thursday, Nov. 20 appearance on CNN’s Erin Burnett OutFront, Mark — the brother of the late financier and convicted s** offender — said the delay seemed deliberate.
“I think it’s an obvious question, not just for me,” he said. “There’s things in there he doesn’t want people to see. That seems to be obvious.”
Mark offered no evidence to support the claim and framed it as his personal belief.
He also told Burnett that Trump and Jeffrey Epstein were “very good friends” in the 1990s and suggested investigators should examine flight records from that period. Mark said the two men flew together on their private planes and spent time in each other’s offices.
“They say Donald was on Jeff’s plane like seven times, but I question, have they checked Donald’s flight logs from those days to see how many times Jeffrey was on his plane?” he said. “I know Jeffrey told me on a number of occasions that he flew up or flew down with Donald. And Donald was in Jeffrey’s office quite a bit back in the 90s. They were good friends, everybody around knew that.”
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Mark further alleged that Jeffrey Epstein ultimately broke ties with Trump after deciding Trump was a “crook,” and claimed that statement was captured “on tape.” He did not provide the recording or details about where it might exist.
During the interview, Mark also said his brother told him Trump called after the 2016 election, surprised by his own victory.
“Jeffrey told me that it was after the election, Trump called him and it was sort of like ‘Can you believe this?’” Mark claimed. “Because nobody believed Trump was going to win. Trump was sort of surprised himself that he won.”
Trump has said publicly that he had not spoken to Epstein for several years before Epstein’s death.
Mark’s latest comments follow other recent allegations he has made about the handling of the Epstein files. In a phone interview earlier this week, he claimed an unnamed source told him conservative names were being removed from the documents to protect Republicans.
“I’ve been recently told… they’re sabotaging these files,” Mark said, alleging officials were “scrubbing the files to take Republican names out.” He described the source as credible but did not identify them.
He added that he believed his brother held damaging information about Trump during the 2016 campaign.
“He didn’t tell me what he knew,” Mark said, “but Jeffrey definitely had dirt on Trump,” claiming it was serious enough to have potentially altered the election.
Asked about Mark Epstein’s allegations, White House spokesperson Abigail Jackson dismissed them as “baseless claims” and argued that attention should also focus on Democrats who had connections to Epstein. In a statement, Jackson raised questions about ties involving Stacey Plaskett, Hakeem Jeffries, and former President Bill Clinton.
Plaskett has previously said she did not consider herself friends with Epstein and claimed she believed he had information relevant to a 2019 House hearing. Jeffries has said he has no recollection of a 2013 fundraising email involving Epstein and that he never met him. A spokesperson for Clinton has long maintained that Clinton was unaware of Epstein’s crimes and has denied that Clinton visited Epstein’s private island.
While Trump has sought to distance himself from Epstein over the years, their past relationship has been documented in public reports and photographs from the 1990s and early 2000s.
Jeffrey Epstein was arrested in July 2019 on federal charges of s** trafficking minors and conspiracy. He died in August 2019 at the Metropolitan Correctional Center in New York while awaiting trial, in what authorities ruled an apparent suicide.
