Donald Trump’s long-standing relationship with the late pedophile Jeffrey Epstein has dragged him into a bitter feud with his MAGA base that refuses to go away—and threatens to blow up his second term as president.
His refusal to release the Epstein files, which his supporters believed would be thrown open if he were re-elected, has led to renewed scrutiny of just how close Trump and Epstein were during a friendship that lasted for years.
The details remain murky, but Jeffrey Epstein certainly isn’t the only friend of Trump who faced allegations of sexual offenses. They include those who have received decades-long prison sentences for the most heinous crimes, some against children.
The White House did not respond to a request for comment.
1. Jeffrey Epstein
Trump’s links to Epstein go way back, and their friendship continues to haunt and embarrass the president. Trump and the convicted financier socialized for years in New York and at Mar-a-Lago. An infamous video shows the two partying and joking around together at Trump’s home and beach club in 1992.
In 2008, Epstein was jailed for 18 months after pleading guilty to soliciting sex from girls as young as 14. In 2019, he was indicted for child sex trafficking in the early 2000s and was facing 45 years in prison before he killed himself in his jail cell in August that year.
2. Ghislaine Maxwell
Rarely away from Epstein’s side, Maxwell also regularly socialized with Trump, and the trio were pictured together in 2000. Following Maxwell’s 2020 arrest, for which she was subsequently convicted on five counts of child-sex-trafficking and abuse, Trump said: “I wish her well.”
The daughter of deceased fraudster and media proprietor Robert Maxwell is currently serving a 20-year prison sentence amid talk that she may give evidence about Epstein’s clients.
3. Leon Black
Trump’s long-time New York donor attended the president’s fundraisers and shared advisers tied to his Mar-a-Lago circle. The billionaire’s son, Benjamin, was nominated by Trump to run the U.S. International Development Finance Corporation earlier this year.
This was despite Black having admitted in 2019 that he had maintained a lucrative advisory relationship with Epstein—paying the disgraced financier about $158 million between 2012 and 2017 for tax and estate-planning help that reportedly saved Black more than $1.3 billion.
A settlement agreement reached with the U.S. Virgin Islands revealed that Black bankrolled Epstein. Black paid the territory $62.5 million to end any claims from its three-year sex-trafficking investigation, but he has denied any misconduct in Epstein’s crimes, saying he “deeply regrets” their connection.
Separately, however, Black has faced multiple sexual-misconduct claims—some linked to Epstein’s properties. A July 2023 lawsuit contends Black raped a 16-year-old girl with Down Syndrome in Epstein’s Manhattan townhouse—an allegation Black vehemently denies.
Cheri Pierson accused him of a 2002 rape, also in Epstein’s New York home, but the single mom dropped her case in 2024 after Black’s attorney, Susan Estrich, called her claims “categorically false and part of a scheme to extort money from Mr. Black by threatening to destroy his reputation.”
Model Guzel Ganieva also alleged years of abuse, in a suit later dismissed. The billionaire said Ganieva’s allegations were part of an intricate extortion racket, branded her a Russian spy, and alleged her lawyers schemed to “harm and humiliate him.”
Although the civil actions have produced a flurry of suits and countersuits, none have resulted in a judgment against Black to date. He denies the allegations.
4. John Casablancas
Trump judged talent agent Casablancas’s 1991 Elite “Look of the Year” model contest at the Plaza Hotel. Later renamed Elite Model Look, it promised a $150,000 contract to its winner, but The Guardian alleged in 2020 that the pageant had allowed Casablancas and others involved in the competition to proposition and even rape young contestants.
Casablancas, who died aged 70 in 2013, faced repeated accusations of sexual relationships with 14- and 15-year-old models, and a 2002 civil suit alleging he impregnated a 15-year-old, although the Los Angeles County Superior Court threw this out because Casablancas was not a California resident. His lawyer insisted that the allegation was without merit.
Trump, then dating future wife Marla Maples, was never accused of any such misconduct. But The Guardian said his deep involvement in the pageant continues to prompt awkward questions, including whether he realized Casablancas and others were sleeping with contestants, and why a 40-something real-estate mogul would bankroll a beauty competition for teenage girls in the first place.
Each later downplayed—and, in the case of Trump, denied—any lasting closeness, yet their alliance continues to hamper Trump’s reputation. The president’s representatives told The Guardian in 2020 that Trump, “hardly knew” Casablancas, spent very little time with him, and knew very little about him.
5. George Nader
Trump worked with Nader—his informal Middle East adviser—despite him having a documented history of serious child sexual offenses, which saw him serve six months in a U.S. prison after a 1991 guilty plea in Virginia for transporting child pornography. A Czech court also convicted him in 2003 of sexually abusing boys, leading to a year in jail before his expulsion from the country.
Regardless, according to current and former officials, Nader helped transition Trump’s White House staff into their first term. As a well‑connected regional fixer, he was said to have joined senior Trump aides at a December 2016 New York meeting with Abu Dhabi’s crown prince, Sheikh Mohamed bin Zayed al‑Nahyan.
Four years later, in 2020, Nader pleaded guilty to child sex trafficking and possession of child abuse images.
6. Matt Gaetz
Gaetz was one of Trump’s most loyal House allies as the U.S. representative for Florida’s 1st congressional district from 2017 until his resignation in 2024. Trump picked him to be his Attorney General and hosted him repeatedly at the White House, until he was forced to withdraw amid congressional investigations into allegations against him.
Trump continued to champion him despite a DOJ probe between 2021 and 2023 into Gaetz allegedly paying for sex with a 17-year-old and interstate trafficking. In a report issued in December 2024, the House Ethics Committee said it had uncovered evidence that Gaetz did pay for sex—including with the 17-year-old—and used illegal drugs during his time in Congress, but concluded there was insufficient proof that his conduct met the federal definition of sex trafficking. Gaetz denies the allegations.
7. Robert Morris
The Gateway Church televangelist pastor hosted Trump’s 2020 Dallas roundtable and served on Trump’s faith-advisory team. He resigned from the church in 2024 after being publicly accused of sexually assaulting a 12-year-old girl in the 1980s.
He admitted the attacks but denied having sex with the child. “When I was in my early twenties, I was involved in inappropriate sexual behavior with a young lady in a home where I was staying,” Morris told The Christian Post.
In a 2014 sermon, Morris admitted to being “sexually immoral” in his youth.
In March this year, the Oklahoma attorney general was reported to have secured a grand-jury indictment charging Morris with five felony counts of lewd or indecent acts to a child, which could see him face as long as 20 years in prison on each count after he surrendered and posted bond.
8. Ted Nugent
The guitarist, singer, songwriter, and political activist dined in the Oval Office with Trump in April 2017 and has campaigned for him at rallies. This is despite Nugent’s 1981 song “Jailbait” describing having sex with a 13-year-old girl, and his admitting in a 1998 VH1 documentary Behind the Music—apparently one of two episodes ever to have a viewer warning—to having sexual relations with underage girls on multiple occasions.
“I was addicted to girls. It was hopeless. It was beautiful,” he said, adding, “I got the stamp of approval of their parents. I guess they figured better Ted Nugent than some drug-infested punk in high school.”
Musician Courtney Love also claimed, on The Howard Stern Show in 2013, that she performed oral sex on Nugent when she was 14, and that there was a line of young girls waiting to engage in sexual acts. Nugent has never responded directly to Love’s allegation.
He did, though, later claim on his YouTube channel, “I wasn’t a sex offender, I’ve never been a sex offender. I’m not all those things that the cancel culture freaks...claim I was. They are just drunk on hate and lies. It’s just hysterical.”
9. Roy Cohn
Trump’s mentor in the 1970s and ‘80s, the deceased lawyer, helped the president beat an infamous DOJ racial discrimination suit. Cohn, played by Jeremy Strong in the movie The Apprentice, described himself as Trump’s best friend.
A 2019 documentary alleged that Cohn procured underage male prostitutes for Studio 54 and private parties. Several of Cohn’s former clients made the extraordinary claim that Cohn had managed to stay out of trouble partly because he possessed compromising photographs of FBI director J. Edgar Hoover.
10. Sean “Diddy” Combs
Combs was acquitted of sex trafficking and racketeering at a federal trial in New York earlier this month, but the jury found the rapper guilty on two counts of “transportation to engage in prostitution” for his infamous “freak-off” parties.
Previously known as P. Diddy, Combs remains in custody while awaiting sentencing, which is set for early October. Each count carries a maximum 10-year sentence. Prior to his arrest, Combs was repeatedly photographed socializing with Donald and Melania Trump on the New York and Palm Beach charity circuits.
11. Vince McMahon
McMahon co-starred with Trump in WWE’s 2007 “Battle of the Billionaires” and has long been a loyal Trump backer. He and estranged wife, Linda, together poured $9 million into the Trump Foundation in 2007 and 2009, and Linda added another $6 million to a pro-Trump super PAC ahead of his first term. Linda now serves as Secretary of Education in Trump’s Cabinet.
But the wrestling svengali resigned from WWE in January 2024 after a lawsuit filed by ex-employee Janel Grant alleged sexual harassment and trafficking. Grant’s 67-page complaint paints a grim picture of her time at the organization. She says McMahon dangled her job in exchange for sex, greeting her in his underwear, groping her, and lingering for “hours” while sharing intimate details of his life.
Once on the payroll, Grant alleges McMahon and then–talent relations chief John Laurinaitis twice assaulted her “while colleagues were busy at their desks,” even locking her in a room at WWE headquarters in Stamford, Connecticut, in June 2021 to take turns assaulting her.
McMahon is also accused of trafficking Grant to other men, forcing her to perform sex acts “on demand,” and circulating nude photos of her. In one 2020 text cited in the suit, McMahon allegedly boasted, “She may scream and try to say NO!! although it would B difficult to say anything with a c--- down her throat.” Another reads: “I’m the only one who owns U and controls who I want to f--- U.”
A McMahon spokesperson called the filing “replete with lies” and vowed he would “vigorously defend himself.” In February this year, Manhattan prosecutors shelved a case for allegedly covering up the various sexual misconduct allegations a day before Linda was due at her Senate confirmation hearing.
12. Roy Moore
Trump nominated Roy Moore as the GOP candidate for Alabama’s 2017 special Senate race to replace Jeff Sessions, but nine women came forward to say that Moore—the former Alabama Supreme Court chief justice—had pursued or assaulted them when they were teenagers or young adults.
Three of the women alleged sexual assault, two of them when they were under 18 and he was in his 30s. Moore denied any misconduct—initially admitting that he recognized two accusers, then later claiming he knew none of the women—and was never prosecuted for any offenses.
He refused to exit the race even after Republican leaders such as John McCain, Mitt Romney, Paul Ryan, and Mitch McConnell urged him to withdraw. Trump, however, accepted his denials and backed Moore, which allowed him to stay in the race, where he lost the deep red state to Democrat Doug Jones.
