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Why news outlets are treading carefully on the Trump–Epstein story

Poynter · Tom Jones · last updated

The connection between President Donald Trump and late convicted sex offender Jeffrey Epstein seems like a big story.

How big?

That’s not an easy answer.

We really don’t know how big the story is because we don’t know how strong the connection was between Trump and Epstein. Emails released this week appear to indicate that Trump might have been aware of something. Beyond that, we just don’t know.

One email from Epstein to himself in February 2019 read that Trump knew about the sexual abuse of underage girls, but never participated.

Epstein wrote, “Trump knew of it. and came to my house many times during that period. He never got a massage.”

In an email to author Michael Wolff in January 2019, Epstein wrote, “Of course (Trump) knew about the girls.”

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