在周五公布政府爱泼斯坦文件材料的最后期限前几天，白宫办公厅主任苏西·怀尔斯在一次采访中说名利场，称唐纳德·特朗普总统"在档案里"但是"他没有在档案里做任何可怕的事情。"
该评论是在该杂志与怀尔斯进行了几个月的一系列11次坦率采访中做出的，并在美国财政部确定的周五截止日期前三天发表爱泼斯坦文件透明法案要求公布政府关于杰弗里·爱泼斯坦(Jeffrey Epstein)的剩余文件，这位富有的金融家和被定罪的性犯罪者于2019年在纽约监狱自杀身亡。
特朗普和爱泼斯坦是朋友，直到他们有了一个闹翻大约在2004年，他说在爱泼斯坦2019年被捕时，他已经有15年没有和爱泼斯坦说过话了。
特朗普的名字和其他与爱泼斯坦有关联的知名人士一起被提及九次在今年早些时候公开的数百页爱泼斯坦文件中，包括他被列在爱泼斯坦的“联系簿”中。
特朗普的名字也出现在由爱泼斯坦的遗产制作并由立法者发布的文件中，与此同时特朗普的照片和其他杰出人士。
怀尔斯是特朗普最信任的顾问之一，他告诉《名利场》，特朗普“在(爱泼斯坦的)飞机上”...他在名单上。他们，你知道，有点年轻，单身，无论什么——我知道这是一个过时的词，但有点年轻，单身花花公子在一起。”
怀尔斯还反驳了特朗普的说法，即在没有证据的情况下，比尔·克林顿多次访问了爱泼斯坦臭名昭著的岛屿。
怀尔斯告诉该杂志，“没有证据”这些访问发生了，他说，关于文件中有证据证明前总统有罪的“特朗普是错误的”。克林顿本人否认有不当行为。
怀尔斯在接受《名利场》采访时，驳斥了爱泼斯坦传奇可能在政治上伤害特朗普的观点。
怀尔斯告诉该杂志说:“对爱泼斯坦非常感兴趣的人是特朗普联盟的新成员，也是我一直想到的人——因为我想确保他们不是特朗普的选民，而是共和党的选民。”“是这个乔·罗根听众。这些人对我们的世界来说是陌生的。不是马加基地。"
特朗普否认知道任何爱泼斯坦的罪行在该案中，爱泼斯坦被指控在其私人岛屿庄园和其他地方贩卖和性虐待年轻妇女和女孩。他坚持认为关于他和爱泼斯坦文件的叙述是民主党人制造的“骗局”。
“嗯，我了解他，就像棕榈滩的每个人都了解他一样，”特朗普说告诉记者爱泼斯坦2019年被捕后在椭圆形办公室。“我是说，棕榈滩的人都认识他。他是棕榈滩的常客。很久以前我和他闹翻了。我想我已经15年没和他说过话了...我告诉你，我不是他的粉丝。我不是他的粉丝。”
在最初承诺公开政府的爱泼斯坦档案后，司法部和美国联邦调查局在7月宣布他们不会公布爱泼斯坦调查的进一步记录，提示反吹来自特朗普的许多MAGA支持者。
美国联邦调查局和DOJ表示，他们没有发现任何证据表明爱泼斯坦保留了一份名人和政治家的“客户名单”，尽管司法部长帕姆·邦迪告诉福克斯新闻频道二月份，爱泼斯坦的客户名单“现在就在我的桌子上”，然后一周后发布了标有“爱泼斯坦文件:第一阶段”的活页夹，其中几乎没有新信息。邦迪回应指责美国联邦调查局驻纽约办事处隐瞒信息关于爱泼斯坦的调查，并要求办公室“交出它所拥有的与爱泼斯坦有关的所有记录。”
关于邦迪，怀尔斯告诉《名利场》:“我认为她完全没有意识到这是一个非常有针对性的群体在关心这件事。”。“首先，她给了他们充满虚无的活页夹。然后她说证人名单，或者说客户名单，在她桌子上。没有客户名单，而且肯定不在她的桌子上。”
关于像卡什·帕特尔和丹·邦吉诺这样的特朗普支持者反复打电话怀尔斯告诉《名利场》，“多年来，卡什一直在说，‘必须公布文件，必须公布文件’。”他一直在说，他认为这些文件中的内容是错误的。"
在《名利场》的文章发表后，怀尔斯在社交媒体上发表了一篇文章，她没有质疑自己的引用，但反驳了故事的背景。
“重要的背景被忽视了，我和其他人关于团队和总统的很多话都被排除在故事之外，”怀尔斯在x上写道。“我想，在读完之后，这样做是为了描绘一个关于总统和我们团队的极其混乱和负面的叙述。”
当被问及是否对怀尔斯充满信心时，特朗普完全支持他的幕僚长纽约邮报，“哦，她太棒了。”
Susie Wiles tells Vanity Fair Trump 'is in' Epstein files but not 'doing anything awful'
Days before Friday's deadline for the release of materials from the government's Epstein files, White House chief of staff Susie Wiles, in an interview published inVanity Fair, said that President Donald Trump"is in the file" but that "he's not in the file doing anything awful."
The comments were made during a series of 11 candid interviews the magazine conducted with Wiles over several months, and were published three days before the Friday deadline established by theEpstein Files Transparency Actfor the release of the government's remaining files on Jeffrey Epstein, the wealthy financier and convicted sex offender who died by suicide in a New York jail in 2019.
Trump, who had a friendship with Epstein until they had afalling outaround 2004, has said that he hadn't spoken to Epstein in 15 years at the time of Epstein's 2019 arrest.
Along with other high-profile individuals who were associated with Epstein, Trump's name was mentionednine timesacross the hundreds of Epstein file pages that were made public earlier this year, including his being listed in Epstein's "contact book."
Trump's name has also appeared in documents produced by Epstein's estate and released by lawmakers, along withphotos of Trumpand other prominent individuals.
Wiles, one of Trump's most trusted advisers, told Vanity Fair that Trump "was on [Epstein's] plane ... he's on the manifest. They were, you know, sort of young, single, whatever -- I know it's a passé word but sort of young, single playboys together."
Wiles also disputed claims Trump has made, without evidence, that Bill Clinton visited Epstein's infamous island numerous times.
"There is no evidence" those visits happened, Wiles told the magazine, saying that "Trump was wrong" about there being evidence in the files incriminating the former president. Clinton himself has denied wrongdoing.
Wiles, in the Vanity Fair interview, dismissed the idea that the Epstein saga could hurt Trump politically.
"The people that are inordinately interested in Epstein are the new members of the Trump coalition, the people that I think about all the time -- because I want to make sure that they are not Trump voters, they're Republican voters," Wiles told the magazine. "It's theJoe Roganlisteners. It's the people that are sort of new to our world. It's not the MAGA base."
Trump has denied any knowledge ofEpstein's crimes, in which Epstein was accused of trafficking and sexually abusing young women and girls on his private island estate and elsewhere. And he has insisted that the narrative about him and the Epstein files is a "hoax" perpetrated by Democrats.
"Well, I knew him like everybody in Palm Beach knew him," Trumptold reportersin the Oval Office following Epstein's 2019 arrest. "I mean, people in Palm Beach knew him. He was a fixture in Palm Beach. I had a falling out with him a long time ago. I don't think I've spoken to him for 15 years ... I was not a fan of his, that I can tell you. I was not a fan of his."
After initially promising to make the government's Epstein files public, the Justice Department and FBI announced in July they would not release further records from the Epstein investigation,prompting blowbackfrom many of Trump's MAGA supporters.
The FBI and DOJ said they found no evidence that Epstein had kept a "client list" of celebrities and politicians, even though Attorney General Pam Bonditold Fox Newsin February that an Epstein client list was "sitting on my desk right now," then a week later released binders marked "Epstein Files: Phase 1" that contained little new information. Bondi responded by accusing the FBI's New York office ofwithholding informationabout the Epstein investigation, and demanded that the office "hand over all records in its possession relating to Epstein."
"I think she completely whiffed on appreciating that that was the very targeted group that cared about this," Wiles told Vanity Fair regarding Bondi. "First she gave them binders full of nothingness. And then she said that the witness list, or the client list, was on her desk. There is no client list, and it sure as hell wasn't on her desk."
Regarding Trump supporters like Kash Patel and Dan Bongino, whorepeatedly calledfor the release of the Epstein files prior to joining the administration, Wiles told Vanity Fair, "For years, Kash has been saying, 'Got to release the files, got to release the files.' And he's been saying that with a view of what he thought was in these files that turns out not to be right."
In a social media post after the Vanity Fair piece came out, Wiles did not dispute her quotes but pushed back on the story's context.
"Significant context was disregarded and much of what I, and others, said about the team and the President was left out of the story," Wiles wrote on X. "I assume, after reading it, that this was done to paint an overwhelmingly chaotic and negative narrative about the President and our team."
Asked if he had full confidence in Wiles, Trump fully backed his chief of staff, telling theNew York Post, "Oh, she's fantastic."
