A former ally of Donald Trump says the president personally ordered his administration to keep the Epstein files under wraps, and that Trump viewed the explosive scandal as a political threat aimed directly at him.
The allegation comes from Tucker Carlson, Trump’s former ally and one-time Fox News star, who told Vanity Fair that he confronted the president about the Epstein files in the summer of 2025 and urged him to release everything connected to Jeffrey Epstein, who died in federal custody in 2019 while awaiting trial on sex-trafficking charges.
“My position from the beginning with Trump,” Carlson said, was that he “didn’t understand why you would ever keep any of this stuff secret.”
Carlson said he told Trump he had no reason to “cover for Epstein” and that Trump shouldn’t either.
But according to Carlson, the decision to keep the files secret came directly from Trump.
“I don’t feel any need to cover for Epstein. So I said, ‘You shouldn’t either.’ In the end, it came from Trump directly,” Carlson told Vanity Fair.
When interviewer Chris Whipple asked what exactly came directly from Trump, Carlson did not mince words.
“The order to cover it up came from Trump,” he said.
Then Carlson said he asked the president why.
According to Carlson, Trump gave him a “very emotional explanation” that the Epstein controversy was part of a plot against him, comparing it to what Trump has long called “Russiagate.”
Carlson’s account suggests Trump did not simply view the Epstein files as an embarrassing political headache. He viewed them as a threat, something he believed could bring him down.
The allegation is significant because the Trump administration later faced mounting pressure from both Republicans and Democrats to release the Epstein records.
Congress eventually passed the Epstein Files Transparency Act, requiring the Justice Department to publish the records. Trump signed the measure after initially resisting calls for broader disclosure. The subsequent releases have produced millions of pages of documents and sparked an ongoing fight over what was released, what was withheld and how the material was redacted.
Trump’s name appears repeatedly throughout the Epstein documents. Trump and Epstein socialized during the 1990s and 2000s, when Epstein was a prominent figure in New York and Palm Beach social circles.
The White House did not directly answer questions about Carlson’s account of the conversation. Instead, it pointed to a lengthy Truth Social attack Trump previously made against Carlson and others who had pressed him over the Epstein files.
Trump called Carlson a “broken man” and attacked him with a string of insults, including “NUT JOBS” and “LOSERS.”
White House spokeswoman Lauren Bis also defended Trump’s record, saying the president had been “totally exonerated” regarding Epstein and pointing to the administration’s release of thousands of pages of documents, cooperation with a House Oversight Committee subpoena and Trump’s signing of the transparency law.
But the Epstein controversy has hardly disappeared.
Congressional investigators continue to seek information about Epstein’s network, including interviews with people who worked with him and others who may have had knowledge of his activities. House Oversight investigators have also interviewed survivors, with some testimony resulting in criminal referrals.
And Carlson is no longer exactly in Trump’s corner.
The former Fox News host once campaigned alongside Trump and pushed for Trump to select JD Vance as his running mate in 2024. But the relationship has deteriorated, particularly over Trump’s foreign policy and the war in Iran.
Carlson has since distanced himself from the president and has discussed the possibility of building a third political party to challenge both Republicans and Democrats.
That makes his allegation about the Epstein files particularly explosive.
The central question is not whether Carlson has made the accusation. He plainly has. It is whether his account of what Trump told him can be independently corroborated.
And with millions of Epstein-related documents still hidden from public view, that question is unlikely to disappear anytime soon.
