FBI Told to Flag Mentions of Trump in Epstein Files, Dem Senator Says

Dick Durbin is leading the Senate Judiciary Committee in an effort to receive more transparency regarding the Trump administration’s handling of the Epstein files, particularly an order from Attorney General Pam Bondi for FBI agents to “flag” any mention they made of President Trump.

In a letter addressed to Bondi on Friday, Durbin wrote: “According to information my office received, you then pressured the FBI to put approximately 1,000 personnel in its Information Management Division (IMD), including the Record/Information Dissemination Section (RIDS), which handles all requests submitted by the public under the Freedom of Information Act (FOIA) and Privacy Act, on 24-hour shifts to review approximately 100,000 Epstein-related records in order to produce more documents that could then be released on an arbitrarily short deadline.”

“My office was told that these personnel were instructed to ‘flag’ any records in which President Trump was mentioned,” he added.

There was likely something for those agents to flag, given Trump’s well-documented relationship with the defamed sex trafficker. There’s the 2002 New York magazine quote where Trump referred to Epstein, his friend of “15 years,” as a “terrific guy” who liked women “on the younger side.” And there was the recent Wall Street Journal report that showed Trump writing a strange birthday message to Epstein in 2006, with the closing line “may every day be another wonderful secret.”

But what else was flagged under Bondi’s watch, and what happened to it? Durbin’s report asks just that:

Why were personnel told to flag records in which President Trump was mentioned?

1. Please list all political appointees and senior DOJ officials involved in the decision to flag records in which President Trump was mentioned.

2. What happened to the records mentioning President Trump once they were flagged?

Trump’s rollout of the Epstein files has been so disorderly that it has Democrats and the most hardcore MAGA loyalists asking the exact same question: What is the truth about Epstein?

The due date for Durbin and the committee’s request is August 1. Trump and Bondi have yet to comment.

Homeland Security Secretary Kristi Noem says that Americans should expect future natural disasters to be handled similarly to the recent deadly flooding in Texas—and no, she wasn’t being ironic. 

During a press conference in Nashville, Tennessee, Thursday, Noem was in denial about just how badly she’d managed the Federal Emergency Management Agency’s response to flooding in Texas earlier this month. 

“What you saw happen in Texas was much more how FEMA will look in the future. It won’t look like the response to [Hurricane] Katrina, or the response to even [Hurricane] Helene, and what happened in North Carolina, where people waited weeks and weeks and months and months for help,” she said.  

But Noem had severely botched FEMA’s Texas response by failing to renew contracts with companies staffing FEMA call centers, resulting in a majority of calls going unanswered for days as the flood waters raged. The secretary dismissed the reporting as “fake news.”

Noem also reportedly delayed FEMA’s initial response by instituting a policy that required her to personally sign off on all DHS expenditures exceeding $100,000. FEMA officials, who were unaware of the new rule, didn’t receive Noem’s go-ahead for 72 hours. 

Last month, Donald Trump said he plans to “phase out” FEMA after this year’s hurricane season, and future disbursements would come straight from him. “We’re going to give it out directly. It’ll be from the president’s office. We’ll have somebody here, could be homeland security,” Trump said at the time. Clearly, putting Noem in charge of personally approving decisions in a disaster comes at a cost, and the Trump administration’s mismanagement of relief is more far-reaching than just the flooding in Texas. 

Twenty Democratic-led states sued the Trump administration Wednesday, claiming that the White House had acted illegally when cancelling FEMA’s Building Resilient Infrastructure and Communities grant program, which funds infrastructure projects such as levees, shelters, and seismic testing to protect people against extreme weather. 

The most radical thing about Elon Musk this month is his staggering unpopularity.

Public opinion of the world’s richest man fell by 66 points since his foray into politics, according to a CNN poll released Thursday.

Musk was the most popular person according to a Bloomberg poll in June 2016—but nearly a decade later, his ratings have tanked. This month, just 23 percent of those polled viewed Musk favorably, with 60 percent having an unfavorable opinion of him, making net favorable opinion of the conservative tech tycoon -37 points, CNN reported. Much of that has happened over the past four months, during which his favorability ratings with the GOP have sunk by 55 points.

His sagging numbers have affected the viability of Musk’s third party dreams: Americans report that while they want a third party as an alternative to Democrats and Republicans, they decidedly do not want one started by Musk. Just 22 percent of voters actually favored a Musk-run third party, while 74 percent opposed it, according to CNN.

Other recent reports found similar results. A YouGov poll released Monday found that while nearly half of surveyed Americans—45 percent—felt that a successful third party was imperative for the country, just 11 percent of those polled said they would support Musk’s.

While Americans have long complained of red tape and waste at the upper echelons of the federal government, they did not enjoy the metaphorical “chainsaw” that Musk’s DOGE took to federal agencies and their services. Americans especially did not like Musk’s involvement, a New York Times review of several surveys reported in April.

Musk’s place in American politics has become particularly tenuous since he publicly severed ties with Donald Trump last month, trying (and failing) to kill the president’s “big, beautiful bill” and accusing the president of being involved with child sex trafficker Jeffrey Epstein. Despite Musk threatening to primary all Republicans who supported the budget bill, he was unable to sway a single vote.

President Trump’s followers offered a measly defense against The Wall Street Journal’s exposé of the president’s close relationship with defamed pedophile Jeffrey Epstein. 

The Journal reported that Trump wrote a 50th birthday letter to Epstein in which he used the word “enigma.” 

“Enigmas never age, have you noticed that?” Trump wrote. 

The MAGA base is claiming that Trump would never use a word like enigma. 

“I asked Grok to search every record of Trump speaking or writing to determine if he has ever used the word “enigma” before, and Grok says there is no record of him ever saying or speaking the word,” wrote Sean Davis, founder of The Federalist, a conservative news outlet. 

Billionaire Bill Ackman also chimed in. 

“I find it to be an enigma that Donald Trump would use the word enigma,” he wrote.  

Grok, Ackman, Davis, and others across MAGA claiming the same thing are very loud and very wrong. There is video footage of Trump saying the word they claim he’s too real (or maybe too stupid?) to use. 

“Carson’s an enigma to me,” Trump said at a rally in 2015, using the word with confidence when describing then-candidate Ben Carson. “Carson’s an enigma.” 

Trump didn’t just use the word correctly, he used it twice in that one speech. The word also appears multiple times in Trump’s books.

Trump earlier tried to discredit the Journal’s report by saying he would never, ever doodle. (Trump’s birthday letter to Epstein allegedly contained a drawing of a nude woman.)

“I never wrote a picture in my life,” Trump said. 

That was also easily debunked, as Trump has made countless sketches that have been auctioned off for thousands of dollars. It’s honestly surprising how weak Trump and MAGA’s excuses are, especially given how indignant and upset he and his inner circle have been acting since the article dropped. He said he doesn’t draw, but there have been multiple drawings of his on the market. His followers say he wouldn’t say those words, but he’s on camera saying them. He would have been better off just outright denying the letter, rather than trying to pick specific parts of the report to rebuff.

Donald Trump’s threats to sue The Wall Street Journal have extended to the daily’s owner, Rupert Murdoch.

The president has promised to sue the newspaper over its latest report that Trump penned a cozy and salacious letter to his “pal” Jeffrey Epstein for the child sex trafficker’s 50th birthday. By Friday, that scheme had extended to include Murdoch, the multibillionaire conservative media mogul who Trump claimed he would force to “testify” in the lawsuit.

“I look forward to getting Rupert Murdoch to testify in my lawsuit against him and his ‘pile of garbage’ newspaper, the WSJ. That will be an interesting experience!!!” Trump posted on Truth Social.

The Journal reported that Trump wrote the letter at Ghislaine Maxwell’s request, as part of a compilation of messages celebrating the glitterati socialite in 2003. Other notable figures accused of being involved in the project include Harvard University professor emeritus Alan Dershowitz, who defended Epstein during his first criminal trial, and billionaire Leslie Wexner, the former CEO of Victoria’s Secret and co-founder of Bath & Body Works, Inc. Dershowitz did not deny to the Journal that he may have taken part in the collaboration.

“A pal is a wonderful thing. Happy Birthday—and may every day be another wonderful secret,” Trump concluded his letter to Epstein, according to the Journal.

The Journal reported that Trump’s letter was framed by a crude drawing of a nude woman, done in Sharpie. His signature on the note was scrawled between the woman’s legs and resembled pubic hair.

“The Wall Street Journal printed a FAKE letter, supposedly to Epstein,” Trump posted to Truth Social Thursday shortly after the report’s publication. “These are not my words, not the way I talk. Also, I don’t draw pictures. I told Rupert Murdoch it was a Scam, that he shouldn’t print this Fake Story. But he did, and now I’m going to sue his ass off, and that of his third rate newspaper. Thank you for your attention to this matter!  DJT”

Facing enormous pressure from his base, Trump ordered the Justice Department to release additional documents pertaining to its investigation into Epstein. The White House did not specify if the documents would be made public, and did not explain the sudden contradiction after Trump had spent the better part of the last week insisting that the Epstein fiasco was a Democrat-invented “hoax.”

Donald Trump is already lying about why CBS’s The Late Show With Stephen Colbert was canceled. 

“I absolutely love that Colbert’ got fired. His talent was even less than his ratings,” Trump wrote on Truth Social Friday morning. “I hear Jimmy Kimmel is next. Has even less talent than Colbert! Greg Gutfeld is better than all of them combined, including the Moron on NBC who ruined the once great Tonight Show.”

But the decision clearly had nothing to do with ratings. 

In the second quarter of 2025, Late Show averaged 2.42 million viewers across 41 first-run episodes, according to Late Nighter, summoning a larger viewership than competitors in that time slot, including ABC’s Jimmy Kimmel Live! and NBC’s The Tonight Show Starring Jimmy Fallon. Meanwhile, Fox News’s Gutfeld did surpass Colbert during its earlier time slot, with an average viewership of 3.29 million people. But when considering the host’s penchant for racist and antisemitic drivel, there isn’t much to idolize there.  

Colbert’s cancellation came just days after the host called out Paramount, CBS’s parent company, for agreeing to pay $16 million to the Trump administration to settle a lawsuit over an edited 60 Minutes interview of failed Democratic presidential candidate Kamala Harris. It’s worth noting that Fox News has absolutely shredded taped interviews with the president in a desperate attempt to make him sound normal. 

During his monologue, Colbert argued that Paramount knew the lawsuit was “completely without merit” but agreed to pay a “big fat bribe” to ease its sale to Skydance Media—a deal that needs approval from the president.

Massachusetts Senator Elizabeth Warren took to social media Thursday night to defend Colbert. “CBS canceled Colbert’s show just THREE DAYS after Colbert called out CBS parent company Paramount for its $16M settlement with Trump—a deal that looks like bribery,” she wrote on X. “America deserves to know if his show was canceled for political reasons.”

Vermont Senator Bernie Sanders also backed up the late night host. “CBS’s billionaire owners pay Trump $16 million to settle a bogus lawsuit while trying to sell the network to Skydance. Stephen Colbert, an extraordinary talent and the most popular late night host, slams the deal. Days later, he’s fired. Do I think this is a coincidence? NO,” he wrote on X. 

Fellow late night host Jimmy Kimmel, who was name-dropped in Trump’s rant, defended Colbert. “Love you Stephen. Fuck you and all your Sheldons CBS,” Kimmel wrote in a post on Instagram. 

Alina Habba, Trump’s shamelessly biased personal lawyer, will soon be out of the job he gave her.

The president appointed Habba, who defended him in his hush-money and E. Jean Carroll defamation cases, as interim U.S. attorney for the District of New Jersey in March. The role was for 120 days, allowing Habba to bypass Senate confirmation. But those 120 days are up next Tuesday, and all signs currently point to Habba not getting officially confirmed, as New Jersey Senators Andy Kim and Cory Booker have sworn to block her nomination.

A source close to the situation told The New Jersey Globe that Habba admitted to her staff on Thursday that she’s not sure what’s next. “I don’t know what’s going to happen, and I’m grateful for my time. This is an amazing office, and I hope I can stay,” she reportedly said.

The end of Habba’s DA tenure prevents one of Trump’s most ardent supporters from grasping even more power. Her history indicates that she would have only used her role to blindly carry out the president’s agenda.

In October, amid the tragedy of Hurricane Helene, Habba falsely claimed that the Biden-Harris administration left “babies floating in the water.” Fox News of all outlets checked her live on air. When Trump fell fast asleep during his own trial, Habba chalked it up to him having tired eyes. “President Trump, he reads a lot,” she said. “He’s been sitting there, as he’s forced to, at the threat of going to jail if he’s not sitting there, for what I assume would be a very mundane day.” She demonstrated a shocking lack of legal expertise at that same trial when she clearly misunderstood what “due process” entailed. And in March, she said that the thousands of military veterans that DOGE fired were simply unfit.

New Jersey seems to be safe from Habba’s sheer incompetence for the time being. Only time will tell if she remains in Trump’s orbit or fades into MAGA obscurity.

After facing enormous pressure from his base, Donald Trump has ordered the Justice Department to release additional details pertaining to child sex trafficker Jeffrey Epstein. The offering was, apparently, more than enough to get a chunk of far-right influencers back on his side.

By Friday morning, conservatives on X were abuzz, trying to find any reason to dismiss a Wall Street Journal report that Trump allegedly penned a salacious letter to Epstein more than two decades ago for the financier’s 50th birthday.

Self-described “theocratic fascist” Matt Walsh wrote on X that the letter, which was reportedly requested by Epstein accomplice Ghislaine Maxwell, “screams fake.”

“The writing doesn’t sound like Trump at all,” Walsh claimed. Hours earlier, Walsh had insisted that Trump’s efforts to shed his Epstein-conscious base by deriding them as “weaklings” and as “stupid” and “naive” was the “number one way to make sure that I keep talking about the subject.”

Laura Loomer, who earlier this month had called on Trump to throw his attorney general out of the government for her role in the reprised scandal, was similarly busy defending the president by Friday morning.

“I’m calling bullshit on this Trump ‘birthday letter’ to Epstein. It’s totally fake. Everyone who actually KNOWS President Trump knows he doesn’t type letters. He writes notes in big black Sharpie,” Loomer insisted. “Trust me, I would know.”

The Journal reported that the drawing of a nude woman that framed Trump’s letter was done in Sharpie. His signature on the note, which was scrawled between the woman’s legs and resembled pubic hair, was also done in Sharpie.

And Elon Musk, who plainly accused Trump of delaying the release of the Epstein files on the basis that the MAGA leader was implicated in them, elevated a script from his AI chatbot Grok that claimed the Journal reporting was “most likely fake.” Grok cited Trump’s “strong denial” of the story and his threat to sue the newspaper and its owner Rupert Murdoch over the letter’s publication.

But not everyone on the right was sold by Trump’s meager offering.

“Last week, the Dept of Justice claimed the Epstein Files don’t exist but they’re also a Democrat hoax, and there is nothing in them except child sex abuse material,” wrote white supremacist, Hitler fan, and far-right political pundit Nick Fuentes. “Now the DOJ, under public pressure, is going to unseal grand jury testimony? Not buying it.”

On Thursday, Fuentes thoroughly mocked Trump as “fat,” “a joke,” “stupid,” and “not funny,” and said that “the liberals were right” and that the country would “look back at MAGA movement as the biggest scam in history.”

Donald Trump and JD Vance clearly didn’t take the time to get their story straight about the president’s lewd 50th birthday letter to alleged sex trafficker Jeffrey Epstein.

The Wall Street Journal reported Thursday that in 2003, Trump penned Epstein a “bawdy” note inside of a doodle of a voluptuous woman as part of a book of birthday notes for the financier. The president wrote that he had “certain things in common” with the child sex offender, and wished his “pal” that “everyday may be a wonderful secret.”

Trump and his team leapt to discredit the reporting—but unfortunately, they didn’t all jump the same way.

Vance took to X to defend Trump, claiming that the president’s team hadn’t even laid eyes on the letter before it was published.

“Forgive my language but this story is complete and utter bullshit. The WSJ should be ashamed for publishing it,” Vance wrote. “Where is this letter? Would you be shocked to learn they never showed it to us before publishing it? Does anyone honestly believe this sounds like Donald Trump?”

“Doesn’t it violate some rule of journalistic ethics to publish a letter like this without showing it to the victim of this hit piece?” Vance wrote in a separate post. “Will the people who have bought into every hoax against President Trump show an ounce of skepticism before buying into this bizarre story?”

But Trump went a different route, claiming that he’d personally warned the publication that he’d sue them if they published the “false, malicious, and defamatory” story.

“The Wall Street Journal, and Rupert Murdoch, personally, were warned directly by President Donald J. Trump that the supposed letter they printed by President Trump to Epstein was FAKE and, if they print it, they will be sued,” Trump wrote in a post on Truth Social.

So which was it? Was the Trump administration completely blindsided by the publication of the letter, or did Trump get enough advance warning to personally threaten them with a lawsuit if they published it? And why go to such lengths to prevent publication if the letter is so obviously fake?

This latest controversy comes amid a firestorm for the Trump administration, as the MAGA horde have demanded more transparency on the so-called Epstein files, after the Justice Department published a memo claiming that the sex criminal kept no incriminating client list. Trump’s attorney general had previously claimed to have that very list sitting on her desk. The mishap has Trump so thoroughly backed into a corner that he’s begun claiming that the so-called Epstein files are a hoax created by Democrats, and seething at his supporters for caring about the files at all.

It’s worth noting that Vance’s complaint that the letter doesn’t “sound” like Trump falls completely flat. After all, the note came just one year after Trump was quoted in a 2002 New York Magazine profile of Epstein, calling him a “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. No doubt about it—Jeffrey enjoys his social life,” Trump said at the time.

Trump’s attorney later claimed that the two had “no relationship.”

The Wall Street Journal on Thursday evening reported that President Trump sent a 50th birthday letter to infamous predator Jeffrey Epstein in 2003, containing a signed sketch of a naked woman and the ominous caption, “Happy Birthday — and may every day be another wonderful secret.” Trump denied that the letter was actually him, on the grounds that he had “never wrote a picture” in his life. 

“The Wall Street Journal printed a FAKE letter, supposedly to Epstein. These are not my words, not the way I talk. Also, I don’t draw pictures,” Trump said on Truth Social Thursday night. “I told Rupert Murdoch it was a Scam, that he shouldn’t print this Fake Story. But he did, and now I’m going to sue his ass off, and that of his third rate newspaper. Thank you for your attention to this matter!  DJT”

That is an outright lie. At least five of the president’s own sketches were auctioned off between 1995 and 2020, suggesting that he had an obvious affinity for drawing. In 2005, a very rudimentary drawing he did of the New York City skyline sold for $30,000. In 2006, another basic sketch was auctioned off, this time of the George Washington Bridge. In 2017, his sketch of the Empire State Building was auctioned off for $16,000. And in 2020, his “Money Tree” drawing sold for $8,500. The president has “wrote” many a picture, poking a gaping hole in his defense against the Journal’s reporting. 

The Journal report also detailed a strange dialogue-style note Trump left in the birthday letter to Epstein, written in the third person.

“Voice Over: There must be more to life than having everything,” the note began.

Donald: Yes, there is, but I won’t tell you what it is.

Jeffrey: Nor will I, since I also know what it is. 

Donald: We have certain things in common, Jeffrey. 

Jeffrey: Yes, we do, come to think of it. 

Donald: Enigmas never age, have you noticed that? 

Jeffrey: As a matter of fact, it was clear to me the last time I saw you. 

Donald: A pal is a wonderful thing. Happy Birthday — and may every day be another wonderful secret.

This all comes as the president desperately tries to make his base, and the mainstream, forget about Epstein and his deep ties to him. But the deeper he tries to bury it, the more that seems to come to the surface.