WASHINGTON — A newly disclosed FBI summary released in the Epstein files says President Donald Trump called Palm Beach, Florida, Police Chief Michael Reiter in July 2006 and told him that “everyone has known he’s been doing this” about financier Jeffrey Epstein. The Justice Department said it is not aware of any corroborating evidence that Trump contacted law enforcement about Epstein two decades ago, leaving the account dependent on Reiter’s recollection recorded during an FBI interview, Feb. 11, 2026.
The FBI summary surfaced as part of a sprawling federal document release that has triggered a fresh wave of scrutiny over who knew what — and when — about Epstein, who was accused of trafficking and sexually abusing underage girls. Reuters reported that Reiter confirmed the details of the FBI interview to the Miami Herald after the document appeared in the latest batch of records.
What the Epstein files document says
The FBI record is a written summary of Reiter’s 2019 interview with federal agents. In it, Reiter recalled a phone call from Trump in July 2006, shortly after details of the local investigation into Epstein became public.
According to the FBI summary, Reiter told investigators that Trump praised the police work and said: “Thank goodness you’re stopping him, everyone has known he’s been doing this.” Reiter also recounted that Trump told him people in New York knew about Epstein, and urged investigators to focus on Epstein’s associate, Ghislaine Maxwell, describing her as “evil,” the document says.
The memo further reflects Reiter’s account that Trump told him he once found himself around Epstein when teenagers were present and left quickly — “got the hell out of there,” as the FBI summary paraphrased the recollection.
In a separate account of the same FBI document, ABC News reported the reference to Trump’s alleged call appears within a four-page FBI report summarizing Reiter’s interview. ABC also reported that a Justice Department official described the call as uncorroborated.
Why DOJ says the Epstein files don’t prove the call happened
The Justice Department’s position is not that the FBI summary is fabricated, but that the government cannot independently confirm the underlying event described by Reiter.
Asked about the reported conversation, the department said: “We are not aware of any corroborating evidence that the president contacted law enforcement 20 years ago.” In practical terms, that means the Epstein files include a documented recollection of a call — not a call log, recording, contemporaneous memo, or other supporting proof that would independently establish it occurred.
At the White House, press secretary Karoline Leavitt did not confirm the call. She described it as “a phone call that may or may not have happened in 2006” and told reporters she did not know whether it occurred, while reiterating that Trump has said he cut ties with Epstein years ago.
Because the Epstein files release includes raw investigative material, the appearance of a name or allegation in a document does not, by itself, establish wrongdoing. The latest FBI summary has sharpened that distinction: It is newsworthy in part because it clashes with Trump’s public posture after Epstein’s 2019 arrest, but DOJ’s statement underscores that it remains a single-source memory recorded years after the fact.
What the Epstein files release is — and what it isn’t
The new disclosures are being published under the Epstein Files Transparency Act, which directs the Justice Department to make publicly available unclassified records related to Epstein and Maxwell, subject to redactions and other limited exceptions.
In a department memo describing the process, the DOJ deputy attorney general’s office said the government identified more than 6 million pages as potentially responsive across multiple investigations, then released more than 3 million responsive pages — along with more than 2,000 videos and about 180,000 images — bringing the total production to nearly 3.5 million pages.
That scale is one reason revelations from the Epstein files can land with force: individual documents can be overlooked for years, then suddenly recirculate when surfaced in a searchable dump. But the size of the release also increases the odds that context is missing, details are redacted, or a document captures only one person’s version of events.
How the Epstein files fit into the long-running Epstein case
The latest Trump-related FBI summary is only the newest flashpoint in a story that has cycled through public attention for more than two decades — with the Epstein files now pulling older reporting and statements back into view.
As far back as 2002, Trump publicly spoke about knowing Epstein socially. In a New York Magazine profile of Epstein, Trump was quoted describing him as “a lot of fun to be with” and remarking that Epstein liked women “on the younger side.” The quote has been widely recirculated since Epstein’s later arrests and prosecutions.
The legal and political consequences intensified years later, after the Miami Herald’s 2018 “Perversion of Justice” investigation spotlighted how Epstein secured a controversial plea deal in Florida. The reporting helped renew attention on the handling of Epstein’s case and the broader network of people around him.
Following Epstein’s death in a New York jail cell in 2019 while awaiting trial, prosecutors continued to pursue his former associate Maxwell. In 2022, Maxwell was sentenced to 20 years in federal prison for her role in helping Epstein sexually abuse teenage girls, according to AP’s coverage of the sentencing.
Now, with the Epstein files being released in bulk, the public is seeing more investigative summaries and background material — some of which reopens long-standing questions about prominent figures in Epstein’s orbit, while also highlighting the limits of what older records can definitively prove without corroboration.
What happens next
For the Trump-related FBI summary, the central question is whether additional evidence — such as contemporaneous records or other witnesses — emerges to support or undercut Reiter’s account. For the wider Epstein files, the broader test will be whether the document release produces verifiable new facts that investigators, courts, or Congress can act on, rather than simply recycling allegations and fueling speculation.
