As Epstein releases near, Americans think Trump knew about Epstein’s alleged crimes

Analysis by Aaron Blake

Friday featured yet another drop in the drip-drip-drip of new information from the Jeffrey Epstein files. This time: new pictures released by House Democrats that feature Donald Trump and other powerful people like Bill Clinton, Steve Bannon and Richard Branson, culled from tens of thousands of photos from Epstein’s estate.

But Epstein’s associations with these men — none of whom has been accused of wrongdoing by law enforcement — have been a matter of public record, and the pictures by themselves don’t tell us a whole lot.

Indeed, the more surprising news on this front Friday morning might have come from a different source: a poll.

The survey reinforced how troublesome impending document drops could be for Trump, especially ahead of next Friday’s big deadline for the Justice Department to turn over what it has to Congress. And that’s because lots and lots of Americans – and even Republicans – are inclined to believe, or at least entertain the idea, that Trump was aware of something unsavory.

The Reuters-Ipsos poll asked whether Americans believed that Trump was not aware of Epstein’s alleged crimes before they became public. Just 18% said it was “somewhat” or “very” likely that Trump didn’t know. Fully 60% said it was “not too” or “not at all” likely that Trump didn’t know. That’s a 3-to-1 margin believing Trump knew something.

Even among Republicans, slightly more felt Trump was probably aware (39%) than leaned toward him not knowing (34%).

Trump, again, has not been accused of wrongdoing in the Epstein case, and he has denied involvement.

But it’s not just this poll that has suggested the public believes he has something to hide.

A Yahoo News-YouGov survey back in July asked not just whether Trump knew about Epstein’s alleged crimes, but also engaged in crimes with Epstein. Around half of Americans (48%) said they believed Trump had.

But perhaps more remarkably, only 24% of Americans doubted that he had. The rest were neutral.

And again, even many Republicans weren’t ruling it out. Just 55% of Republicans rejected the assertion out of hand. (13% thought Trump had committed crimes with Epstein, while one-third were neutral.)

Just to underscore the remarkable things these polls are telling us: Three-quarters of Americans suggested they remained open to the possibility that the president of the United States knew about or even engaged in crimes with a notorious pedophile. And even many Republicans thought he knew something about what Epstein was up to.

That suggests that, even if there is no smoking gun linking Trump to wrongdoing, the impending release of more documents could be bad for the president, to the extent they keep mentioning Trump or including photos of him like they have before. (As for the photos and emails from the estate that House Oversight Committee Democrats have released, the White House has claimed a “Democrat hoax,” said the emails “prove absolutely nothing, other than the fact that President Trump did nothing wrong” and said the administration “has done more for Epstein’s victims that Democrats ever have.”)

There are some key caveats to what the polling shows.

One is that the poll questions didn’t specify what kind of crimes. Certainly, Epstein is known for one very specific type of crime. But perhaps the large number who entertain the idea of Trump being implicated in crimes owes in part to Americans largely just believing that very powerful people are liable to commit some kinds of crimes.

Indeed, we’ve even seen this before with Trump specifically. Polling during the 2024 campaign showed that voters said 54%-38% that they believed Trump had committed “serious federal crimes.” Even long before his indictments, a poll conducted amid the scandal in which Trump was impeached for apparently pressuring Ukraine for election help in 2020 showed 63% believed Trump had at least “probably” done illegal thingsduring his political career.

So some of this could be baked in.

But as for the Epstein crimes, there isn’t solid evidence of Trump’s involvement or knowledge, unlike his indictments or the Ukraine scandal.

And it’s also likely that some of this owes to the way Trump has handled the Epstein files and what we’ve learned so far.

The president has, quite simply, done a bunch of things that sure made it look like he had something to hide. That includes a series of misleading statements about his past relationship with Epstein, as well as his slow disclosures about knowing Epstein accomplice Ghislaine Maxwell recruited a minor employee from Mar-a-Lago, Virginia Giuffre.

There are also multiple data points that suggest Trump knew that Epstein had a particular interest in young females, at least. And that’s not just his infamous 2002 quote about Epstein liking women “on the younger side.”

The Epstein emails released last month even showed Epstein suggesting in private that Trump knew something about Epstein and girls. “Of course he knew about the girls …” Epstein said at one point in 2019, in apparent reference to Maxwell’s recruitment. In another email from 2011, Epstein called Trump the “dog that hasn’t barked” and said Giuffre had “spent hours at my house” with Trump.

Given all of that, it shouldn’t be too surprising that lots of Americans believe the worst and that many more seem to at least be keeping an open mind that Trump was implicated in or aware of Epstein’s crimes.

But with less than a week to go until the Friday deadline for the release of the DOJ’s files, these aren’t the kinds of numbers Trump would like to see.

And they reinforce the very real political danger in all of this for the president. After all, Americans have been assuming the worst about the Epstein files for a while. Trump just gave them reason to believe he had something to hide.