So the White House Apparently Freaked Out Over Epstein Files in the Situation Room
According to a New York Times report, the files “paralyzed” the administration much more than previously thought.
Photo: Getty Images PoliticsTrump Administration Epstein Files
Recent history has yielded a spate of very embarrassing reports from inside the White House—many of which portray the administration as a flailing trainwreck—and it’s been hard to imagine anything could be more bewildering than stories about staffers spreading rumors that Stephen Miller plays with dolls, Kash Patel freaking out that he was locked out of his job because he couldn’t log into his computer, or Susie Wiles rinsing her colleagues out loud to a journalist while on the record. The latest addition to this growing genre came Wednesday, however, when the New York Times revealed how exactly Team Trump reacted to the Epstein files—and how they were “paralyzing the Trump administration to a far greater extent than the public knew.”
Per the NYT report, on July 17, 2025—over a week after the Justice Department and FBI quietly backtracked from its original claims of having a “client list” of Epstein’s—a group of top administration officials met without Trump in the White House Situation Room to figure out some urgent damage control. Specifically, they were brought together over an incoming Wall Street Journal report further tying the president to the disgraced financier and convicted pedophile—a piece they ultimately failed to kill.
During this conversation, one of the officials present apparently brought up a grim accusation made against Trump during Virginia Giuffre’s defamation case against Ghislaine Maxwell in 2015—referring to Trump’s apparent obsession with nipples. Apparently, one of Epstein’s victims told a journalist she knew of another victim named Jen, who said she’d had sex with Trump. According to her, Jen said Trump had a “predilection for nipples” and would “aggressively” flick and suck hers, and that when she herself had seen Jen’s breasts in a shared bathroom, they looked “incredibly painful,” “red,” and “swollen.”
Though the claim was uncorroborated, it was raised in the Situation Room as a potential crisis—and the question of bringing it into a searchable Epstein library brought forward debate. “This is out there,” one official reportedly said. “They’re going to make a huge scene of this, even though it’s not true and everybody knows it.” For his part, Vice President JD Vance—who throughout the meeting reportedly pushed to release the files in full—said it would be OK to allow the document to be made public, saying also that Trump’s been accused of worse things. Sound logic!
Speaking to the NYT, one official said it was “surreal” to be having a conversation about nipples in the Situation Room.
There are credible allegations made against Donald Trump that he mutilated a child’s nipples while raping her.
Allegations so serious, his inner circle had to meet in the Situation Room to discuss them.
I mean, how the fuck isn’t this the biggest scandal in the world right now?
— JoJoFromJerz (@jojofromjerz.bsky.social) June 10, 2026 at 6:19 PM
The report also reveals just how much damage then-Attorney General Pam Bondi’s was doing to stress out the rest of the administration, beginning in February 2025, when she infamously hinted on Fox News that there was an Epstein client list, that it was “sitting” on her desk for review, and that its release was imminent. About a week later, her colleagues were apparently even more stressed when she started handing out Epstein binders to MAGA influencers—in what the NYT said was an “egregious misstep” for the administration’s overall plan. Per the outlet:
Then the attorney general and her team walked into the Roosevelt Room carrying boxes. Bondi had brought binders as handouts for the influencers; her aides would later tell colleagues that the F.B.I. had prepared them, with the assurance that they contained revelatory details. Someone on her staff said: “Watch this. This is cool. This is going to be epic.”
But as Bondi’s staff started distributing the binders, the blood pressure of other officials in the room skyrocketed. They had no idea what was in the handouts. The attorney general was distributing something she was calling “the Epstein files” that had not been vetted by anyone in the White House. One official, opening the binder, began flipping through pages to see if Trump’s name was mentioned anywhere. A few pages in, right in the middle of the page, there it was.
Speaking to the Independent about the revelations, a spokesperson for the White House said Trump has been “totally exonerated on anything relating to Epstein.” “By releasing thousands of pages of documents, cooperating with the House Oversight Committee’s subpoena request, signing the Epstein Files Transparency Act, and calling for more investigations into Epstein’s Democrat friends, President Trump has done more for Epstein’s victims than anyone before him.” An insane thing the administration continues to say.
The NYT article came as part of an excerpt of an upcoming book, Regime Change: Inside the Imperial Presidency of Donald Trump, by the outlet’s Maggie Haberman and Jonathan Swan. And, well, if this is only the taster… I can’t imagine what’s to come.
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