A top adviser to President Donald Trump told Vanity Fair that Trump’s name appears in what she described as “the Epstein file,” which she said she has read — while insisting he did not do “anything awful” with the late sex offender Jeffrey Epstein.
Susie Wiles, speaking for a two-part Vanity Fair series about Trump’s first year back in the White House, addressed the long-anticipated release of files connected to Epstein — a subject that has followed the administration through Trump’s second term.
According to the report, the administration resisted releasing all records tied to Epstein for months before Congress passed an act in November requiring the public disclosure of as many files as possible.
Wiles, 68, reportedly told the magazine that Trump is in “the Epstein file.”
“We know he’s in the file. And he’s not in the file doing anything awful,” she said, adding that Trump “was on [Epstein’s] plane … he’s on the manifest.”
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She also described the pair as having moved in the same social circles at the time: “They were, you know, sort of young, single, whatever — I know it’s a passé word but sort of young, single playboys together.”
Vanity Fair noted that Trump began dating Melania Trump in 1998 — while he was reportedly finalizing his divorce from Marla Maples — and that the couple later married in 2005. The article also referenced comments from Epstein victim Virginia Giuffre, who said she first met Epstein in 2000 while working at Trump’s Mar-a-Lago spa.
Though Trump and Epstein were reportedly close for years, Trump has said their relationship ended around 2004.
Wiles also disputed reporting that Trump sent Epstein a birthday card featuring an outline of a nude woman’s body, a claim first reported by The Wall Street Journal in July. That reporting said the note, allegedly sent in 2003, included an imagined back-and-forth between the two men.
“The letter is not his,” Wiles told Vanity Fair, adding that it didn’t ring true to her or to others who have known Trump longer. She said the administration expects to learn more through discovery as part of a lawsuit.
Trump — who is suing The Wall Street Journal for $20 billion — told the outlet in July, “This is not me. This is a fake thing. It’s a fake Wall Street Journal story. I never wrote a picture in my life. I don’t draw pictures of women… It’s not my language. It’s not my words.”
While defending Trump overall, Wiles also appeared to distance herself from one of his claims. She told Vanity Fair there was “no evidence” for Trump’s assertion that former President Bill Clinton visited Epstein’s island “28 times,” a claim Trump made without offering proof during a July press conference. Wiles said “the president was wrong” to suggest there was incriminating information about Clinton in the files.
The Justice Department has previously released hundreds of pages of documents tied to the Epstein case, including material that had already been publicly reported.
After Trump signed the Epstein Files Transparency Act in November, the department was directed to publish “all unclassified records, documents, communications, and investigative materials in DOJ’s possession that relate to the investigation and prosecution of Jeffrey Epstein.” The department must release the files by Friday, Dec. 19 — 30 days after the bill was signed.
After the profile ran, Wiles criticized it in a statement, calling it a “disingenuously framed hit piece” and arguing that key context was left out in a way that portrayed the White House as “overwhelmingly chaotic and negative.”
White House press secretary Karoline Leavitt also issued a statement defending Wiles, saying she has helped Trump achieve “the most successful first 11 months in office” and describing her as one of the president’s most loyal advisers.
