The Wall Street Journal pushed a fake news hoax about President Donald Trump and Jeffrey Epstein last week. Are we shocked that The New York Times followed suit on Sunday? What’s tragic about the story is that the publication uses an Epstein accuser’s allegations against the dead New York financier and Ghislaine Maxwell to take another shot at Donald Trump. The paper teases at a “troubling” encounter this accuser had with Mr. Trump.
In total, the piece nurses the liberal media’s latest obsession, which is desperately tying Trump to Epstein files. We don’t even have the files, but the media is all but saying that Trump’s name is all over them. The story implodes completely halfway down the article, though it is doubtful that anyone read that far to see how it guts the story (via NYT) [emphasis mine]:
It was the summer of 1996 when Maria Farmer went to law enforcement to complain about Jeffrey Epstein.
At the time, she said, she had been sexually assaulted by Mr. Epstein and his longtime partner, Ghislaine Maxwell. Ms. Farmer, then in her mid-20s, had also learned about a troubling encounter that her younger sister — then a teenager — had endured at Mr. Epstein’s ranch in New Mexico. And she described facing threats from Mr. Epstein.
Ms. Farmer said that when she discussed her concerns with the New York Police Department, then with the F.B.I., she also urged them to take a broader look at the people in Mr. Epstein’s orbit, including Donald J. Trump, then still two decades from being elected president. She repeated that message, she said, when the F.B.I. interviewed her again about Mr. Epstein in 2006.
Her account is among the clearest indications yet of how Mr. Trump might have come to be named in the unreleased investigative files in the Epstein case, a matter that has generated another political uproar in recent weeks.
In interviews over the past week about what she told the authorities, Ms. Farmer said she had no evidence of criminal wrongdoing by Mr. Epstein’s associates. But she said she was alarmed by what she saw as Mr. Epstein’s pattern of pursuing girls and young women while building friendships with prominent people, including Mr. Trump and President Bill Clinton.
[…]
The story of Ms. Farmer’s efforts to call law enforcement attention to Mr. Epstein and his circle shows how the case files could contain material that is embarrassing or politically problematic to Mr. Trump, even if it is largely extraneous to Mr. Epstein’s crimes and was never fully investigated or corroborated.
Recommended
Here’s the “troubling” encounter:
Ms. Farmer said she recalled feeling scared as Mr. Trump stared at her bare legs. Then Mr. Epstein entered the room, and she recalled him saying to Mr. Trump: “No, no. She’s not here for you.”
The two men left the room, and Ms. Farmer said she could hear Mr. Trump commenting that he thought Ms. Farmer was 16 years old.
After her encounter with Mr. Trump, Ms. Farmer said, she had no other alarming interactions with him, and did not see him engage in inappropriate conduct with girls or women.
And what Epstein allegedly did to Ms. Farmer:
Ms. Farmer, an artist, worked for Mr. Epstein in 1995 and 1996, initially to acquire art on his behalf but then later to oversee the comings and goings of girls, young women and celebrities at the front entrance of his Upper East Side townhouse.
In 1996, Ms. Farmer said she went to stay at Mr. Epstein’s estate in Ohio in a complex developed by Leslie H. Wexner, the chief executive of the company that owned Victoria’s Secret. Mr. Epstein and Ms. Maxwell came that summer.
Ms. Farmer said that after she was asked to give Mr. Epstein a foot massage, he and Ms. Maxwell violently groped her until she fled the room and barricaded herself in another part of the building. Ms. Farmer was an artist who did work on nude figures, and she also reported that partially nude photos she had of her two younger sisters were missing from a storage lockbox.
So, here’s a tip on making things less complex, NYT—how about not reporting on matters that aren’t verified yet? Second, all these encounters are before Epstein’s 2008 conviction for trying to procure a child for sex. Third, that same year, Trump and Epstein broke contact for good. Last, Trump supposedly stared at her bare legs—that’s it. Okay, maybe a touch indelicate, but it’s hardly what Epstein and Maxwell did, and this “troubling encounter” appears to be more in passing. It’s weak sauce, which is why it’s buried in the story, along with Epstein’s connections to the Clinton family.
The whole story reeks of jumping the gun for obvious political purposes, but that’s the legacy press. The scraping at the bottom of the barrel here is beyond pathetic.
Thus far, we have fake birthday messages and ‘he stared at me’ as the attacks lobbed against the president.
You’ve got to be kidding me.
The Wall Street Journal kicked off this circus when it reported a story about Trump handing a typewritten birthday note to Mr. Epstein in 2003. It was a nothing burger, and the note has not been published, nor does the Journal seem to have possession of it.
6 questions for the idiots at the Wall Street Journal:
— James Fishback (@j_fishback) July 18, 2025
1. How on earth did you just suddenly find a letter from 2003?
2. Who gave it to you? When? What were the terms?
3. Why didn’t you publish the “letter” in full?
4. President Trump’s always been known for writing personal…
Legacy Media Off The Rails: MSNBC’s Lawrence O’Donnell floats insane theory that JD Vance is trying to force Trump out of the presidency over “Birthday Letter"
— Western Lensman (@WesternLensman) July 18, 2025
"JD Vance, the person who would move up to the presidency if this issue becomes so difficult that it drives Donald… pic.twitter.com/p21jHKLApn
This WSJ hit piece was so bad, it’s already uniting all the factions within MAGA again.
— Dustin Grage (@GrageDustin) July 18, 2025
Nothing brings people together like the fake news media running a garbage story.
This makes me very much doubt the authenticity of the materials cited in the WSJ story. pic.twitter.com/Mfnv0aXWVa
— Jordan Schachtel (@JordanSchachtel) July 18, 2025
Editor’s Note: Do you enjoy Townhall's conservative reporting that takes on the radical left and woke media? Please support our work so that we can continue to bring you the truth.
Join TOWNHALL VIP and use the promo code FIGHT to get 60% off your VIP membership!
Join the conversation as a VIP Member