The Epstein Files Drop With A Whimper

Wow. In the Epstein emails DOJ dropped, Jeffrey sent himself emails memorializing a fight he had with Bill Gates. In it he says that Bill Gates got STD’s from Russian hookers, and then asked Jeffrey for antibiotics that Bill could secretly give to Melinda without her noticing. 😳 pic.twitter.com/XNA0vNWTcI

— Robby Starbuck (@robbystarbuck) January 30, 2026

As far as I can see, the takeaway frpom the latest tranche of Epstein files is that Trump and Epstein were part of the social scene in both New York and Palm Beach, and as a result, their paths sometimes crossed, especially because Epstein was always a wannabe, while Trump was much more authentic. Epstein made occasional half-hearted efforts to ingratiate himself with Trump, but he always pretty much knew they wouldn't get anywhere.

CNN has a detailed summary, from which we can garner typical examples:

One of Jeffrey Epstein’s victims told the FBI that his longtime associate Ghislaine Maxwell once “presented her” to Donald Trump at a party and suggested that she was “available,” according to an internal FBI memo released Friday.

The FBI memo is from mid-2021, a few months before Maxwell was convicted on federal sex trafficking charges. According to the memo, the witness said, ultimately, “nothing happened” between her and Trump, who has never been accused by investigators of involvement in Epstein’s or Maxwell’s crimes.

The victim said Maxwell brought her to a party in New York when she was about 22 years old, though it was unclear what year this took place. Maxwell “seemed very excited that there would be a lot of great men for” the victim “to meet,” according to the interview notes. The victim said that during the party, Maxwell “presented [her] to Trump,” and that the victim “felt that Maxwell presented her” by giving a rundown of her accolades, “similar to a CV.”

The memo said Trump invited the woman to his Mar-a-Lago club in Florida. She subsequently went on a tour there with the future president, Maxwell, and Epstein — and “by the things that Maxwell said, it was made clear that [she] was available,” the memo said.

Maxwell said things such as, “Oh I think he likes you. Aren’t you lucky,” according to the FBI memo, and also encouraged the victim to wear clothes that she thought Trump would like.

But "nothing happened". Or this:

The Justice Department’s newly released files related to Jeffrey Epstein on Friday include an FBI form that details a complaint from a woman who accused Donald Trump of raping her when she was 13 years old.

This anonymous accuser previously launched lawsuits against Trump and dropped them, the last one right before the 2016 election.

The FBI document details multiple instances of alleged abuse of Jane Doe by Trump, including rape. It also says Epstein was allegedly “angry that Trump was the one to take Doe’s virginity” and also raped Doe. These descriptions mirror the allegations that Jane Doe made in her 2016 lawsuit.

Trump had previously denied the woman’s allegations, and the Justice Department has said of the documents, “This production may include fake or falsely submitted images, documents or videos, as everything that was sent to the FBI by the public was included in the production that is responsive to the Act.”

Jane Doe was expected to appear at a news conference in Los Angeles in November of 2016, but the event was abruptly canceled. Her lawyer at the time, Lisa Bloom, said her client was too afraid to show up.

Asked by CNN for comment Friday, Bloom said she was no longer the woman’s attorney and declined to comment.

And that seems to be about the worst they have on Trump -- but let's reiterate that the whole reason for the Epstein file dump in the first place was to dig up dirt on Trump. The picture is much worse for other figures like Bill Gates:

Emails from an account that appeared to belong to Jeffrey Epstein claimed Microsoft co-founder Bill Gates tried to hide a sexually transmitted disease from his wife Melinda after having sex with “Russian girls”.

In one email that Epstein seems to have sent to his own account — one of 3mn pages of files released by the Department of Justice on Friday — the late sex offender also appears to take issue with Gates for ending their relationship.

“TO add insult to injury you then subsequently with tears in your eyes, implore me to please delete the emails regarding your std, your request that I provide you with antibiotics that you can surreptitiously give to Melinda, and the description of your penis,” the message says.

The full text is included in the X post at the top here. It includes references to some type of service agreement between Epstein and Gates, for which Epstein was paid, and for which "you have consistently maintained to me that I could not have done a better job, and that I was underpaid compared to my contibution", which, however required some type of confidentiality agreement "for keeping the Gates reputation intact". Epstein was not satisfied with the severance Gates paid him.

Or Larry Summers, whose correspondence with Epstein resurfaces in the new tranche, although last November's release concerning an adulterous tryst did far more damage to Summers's reputation. Via the CNN summary:

Multiple emails released Friday between Jeffrey Epstein and Larry Summers, former US treasury secretary and Harvard University president, show the two men gossiping about President Donald Trump during his first presidential term.

“How guilty is Donald?” Summers asked in a May 2017 email in which he went on to discuss the idea that Russia helped Trump win in 2016, which Summers deemed “plausible but not certain.” (Trump has long denied any complicity with Russia in that election.)

Epstein replied that “your world does not understand how dumb he really is.”

In an earlier, October 2016 email, Summers asks Epstein, “How plausible is idea [that] trump is real cocaine user?” Epstein replied “zero.”

In July 2017, Summers wrote to Epstein: “I think your friend is mentally ill.” Epstein responded that the person is “not my friend, and i ve told you that before.”

The picture that's beginning to come out from the Epstein files, which mostly cover Trump's middle-age years before his political career, is that he seems to have had an instinctive sense of what boundaries he shouldn't cross, even as a private citizen, although it's worth pointing out that although he wasn't yet in politics, he was very much in the public eye, a position he cultivated and enjoyed -- and in consequence, he was aware that scandals like drug use, rape, or sex with minors would be bad publicity and damage his relationships with creditors and business associates. The trump name itself was a major buiness asset; its association with any sort of low life would turn it into a joke.

Whast intrigues me is that Epstein seems to have understood this in some way. He seems to have made occasional pro forma attempts to corrupt Trump, as he also did with Elon Musk, but at worst, what he had to offer doesn't seem to have been that attractive to either Trump or Musk. And in fact, it looks like Epstein knew a thing or two about Russian hookers, if he set Gates up with some, but somewhere deep down, he seems to have undedrstood Russian hookers just weren't Trump's thing.

Epstein was never more than a wannabe.