Trump Claims Epstein Files Are ‘Fake’ When Asked If He’s in Them: ‘They Can Easily Put Something In the Files!’

President Donald Trump dismissed the Jeffrey Epstein case files as “a hoax” during a press conference alongside U.K. Prime Minister Keir Starmer on Monday, after he was asked about reporting that his name appears in the files.

The press conference, held during Trump’s visit to his golf course in Turnberry, Scotland, took a detour when a reporter asked: “Mr. President, you have said that you have not been briefed on the Epstein files, or that your name has not appeared in the Epstein files, but doesn’t the AG have to tell you if your name is?”

The Wall Street Journal was first to report last week that Attorney General Pam Bondi did indeed brief Trump in May that his name was in the files. Trump has denied he was ever briefed with that information.

Trump, in response to the question, declared the Epstein files “fake” and suggested that false information was planted inside of them by his enemies.

“Well, I haven’t been overly interested in it,” Trump said. “It’s a hoax that’s been built up way beyond proportion. I can say this: those files were run by the worst scum on Earth. They were run by [James] Comey, they were run by [Merrick] Garland, they were run by [Joe] Biden — and all of the people that actually ran the government, including the autopen.”

“The whole thing is a hoax,” Trump continued. “They ran the files—I was running against somebody that ran the files. If they had something, they would have released. Now they can easily put something in the files that’s a phony. Like, as an example, Christopher Steele — a person you know well, happens to be from your country—wrote a book, a dossier. We call it the fake dossier. And the whole thing was a fake. They can put things in the file that are fake.”

Trump went on to argue that his predecessor and the “bad, sick people” in his administration “ran” the Epstein files and would have released them to harm his campaign “if there was anything in there.”

He did not deny, however, that he had been informed that his name appeared in the files. Trump was a close friend of Epstein, the late sex criminal, for years. The Journal reported earlier this month that Trump sent Epstein a “bawdy” birthday card with a doodle of a nude woman — a story Trump has denied and is suing the Journal over.