Jeffrey Epstein

Did Rep. Ted Lieu say that the full, unreleased Epstein files show President Donald Trump raping children? No, that's not true: Lieu said at a Feb. 3, 2026, news conference that the files include "highly disturbing allegations" of Trump raping and threatening to kill children. He did not reference "unreleased" files, or say that child rapes are seen in them.…

Does an image show Attorney General Pam Bondi at age 14 with President Donald Trump at a Jeffrey Epstein party? No, that's not true: An AI-generated content detector concluded that it was 99.9% certain to have been made by an artificial intelligence tool. Lead Stories found obvious signs that it was a deepfake image in 2023 when we fact checked…

Was President Donald Trump originally mentioned in the claim that 4,725 wire transfers totaling $1.1 billion were made to Jeffrey Epstein using Russian banks? No, that's not true: This appears to be based on a mangled version of a statement Sen. Ron Wyden made about various transfers flowing in and out of Epstein's account. The Congressional Record shows that when…

Does a real photo from 2006 show Jeffrey Epstein posing by a pool with Bill and Hillary Clinton, Diddy, Bill Gates, Jay-Z, and Stephen Hawking? No, that's not true: The image was created with Google AI. It contains an invisible SynthID watermark which can be detected with the Google Gemini app. The fake image was posted (archived here) on Facebook…

Did the website pizzaamorestthomas.com that is mentioned in a 2015 email in the Epstein files look in February 2026 as it did in 2015 when the email was sent? No, that's not true: A prankster re-registered the expired domain name in 2026 after the Epstein files were released. The website currently features an AI or manipulated image of comedian Sam…

Was a bearded Jeffrey Epstein photographed walking in Tel Aviv, Israel in 2026? No, that's not true: Jeffrey Epstein died in 2019. The image is AI-generated. Some versions of the image circulating on social media have been cropped, but the full-size image shows the Gemini AI Sparkle watermark in the lower right corner. Two cropped versions of the fake image…

Did U.S. Representative Thomas Massie say he obtained a flash drive containing the original versions of all Epstein files? No, that's not true: In an email to Lead Stories, Massie denied that. Lead Stories found no evidence supporting social media posts making the claim that Massie had such a flash drive. The claim appeared in a post (archived here) published…

Is a viral image showing Mark Zuckerberg, Reid Hoffman and Jeffrey Epstein eating sushi together a real photograph? No, that's not true: The image originated on an X account that says it posts "high quality AI videos and memes" to expose "dumb" people. According to Google's Gemini tool the image contained a SynthID watermark, indicating it was made with AI.…

Is a photo that shows Senate Majority Leader Chuck Schumer smiling and dining with Jeffrey Epstein legitimate? No, that's not true: The image was created by an artificial intelligence tool, according to several AI-generated content detectors. Google's Gemini detected a SynthID watermark embedded in the image indicating that all or part of it was created or edited with Google AI.…

Does a real photo show Melania Trump and Ghislaine Maxwell posing with three young women whose faces have been redacted? No, that's not true: This fake photo was made to look like a Polaroid photo from 1998. The high resolution fake image was featured as a clickbait thumbnail for a YouTube video, with black redactions as if it originated from…