Jeffrey Epstein’s brother is throwing a grenade into the already toxic fight over the long awaited Epstein files, and he is aiming it squarely at Republicans in power. Mark Epstein has claimed that the government records on his late brother, a convicted sex offender, are being edited to protect conservative politicians by stripping their names from the documents before they are released.
In a phone interview with NewsNation on Monday, Mark said he had been told by an unnamed source that “Republican names” were being scrubbed from the files that Congress has now ordered released. “I’ve been recently told the reason they’re going to be releasing these things, and the reason for the flip is that they’re sanitizing these files,” he said, describing what he called a facility in Winchester, Virginia, “where they’re scrubbing the files to take Republican names out.” He added, “That’s what I was told by a pretty good source.”
Mark’s explosive allegation landed just as President Donald Trump executed a dramatic about face on the issue. After months of resistance from his administration, Trump urged House Republicans to vote to release the Epstein files, a sharp reversal from his earlier opposition to letting them see the light of day. Congress responded with a blowout vote on the Epstein Files Transparency Act, passing it 427 to 1 in the House, followed by unanimous consent in the Senate, sending it to Trump’s desk.
Publicly, Trump has insisted he has “nothing to hide” and framed the release as a way to move past what he calls a partisan fixation on his connections to Epstein. He recently said Republicans should vote to release the files “because we have nothing to hide, and it’s time to move on.”
Mark, however, says the timing tells a very different story. He claims the administration’s sudden embrace of transparency is not about principle, but about confidence that the most damaging material for Republicans has already been removed. In the interview, he alleged officials are “sabotaging these files,” and said they are “scrubbing the files to take Republican names out.”
Jeffrey Epstein’s brother Mark reveals that “Jeffrey definitely had dirt on Trump” and claims that “everything Trump says is a lie.”
“In 2016, Jeffrey told me if he said what he knew about the candidates, they’d have to cancel the election…”pic.twitter.com/dKD5gIybik
— Thomas Sowell Quotes (@ThomasSowell) November 18, 2025
He also went further than he has in the past about what his brother may have known. Mark recalled a conversation from 2016, when Trump was running for his first term in office, in which Jeffrey suggested he possessed explosive information on the presidential contenders. According to Mark, Jeffrey told him that what he knew about the candidates would be serious enough to “cancel the election.” “He didn’t tell me what he knew,” Mark said, “but Jeffrey definitely had dirt on Trump.”
The allegations arrive after months of scrutiny of the Trump administration’s handling of the Epstein case files. Justice Department officials have repeatedly said there is no “client list” and have stood by the conclusion that Epstein died by suicide in federal custody, positions that have done little to quell public suspicion. The overwhelming bipartisan vote to force the documents out, and the requirement that the Justice Department provide an unredacted list of officials and politically exposed persons named in the records, only raises the stakes.
For now, Mark’s theory remains just that, based on what he describes as private assurances from a source he considers credible. But in a political environment already supercharged by conspiracy and distrust, the idea that the files are being “sanitized” to shield Republicans, and possibly Trump himself, guarantees that even when the Epstein records finally emerge, few people will believe they are seeing the whole truth.
