A judge recently ordered court documents related to Jeffrey Epstein, the former financier who killed himself in 2019 while awaiting a trial on child sex trafficking charges, be unsealed. The release of those documents includes the names of sex abuse victims, litigation witnesses, Epstein’s employees and others, including some who have not currently been accused of wrongdoing.
The release of the documents has reignited speculation over the relationships certain celebrities, politicians and business leaders might have had with Epstein, who surrounded himself with famous and powerful people.
A photo that appears to show former President Donald Trump seated next to Epstein on Epstein’s private plane went viral on social media after it was posted by several accounts in the days leading up to and after the latest release of the documents. Trump is named in the documents but is not accused of any wrongdoing.
THE QUESTION
Is a viral photo showing Trump with Epstein on a plane real?
THE SOURCES
Independent photo analysis
RevEye, a tool that reverse image searches through four search engines at once
Illuminarty, an AI detection tool
Hive, an AI detection tool
THE ANSWER
No, a viral photo showing Trump with Epstein on a plane isn’t real. It was generated using AI.
WHAT WE FOUND
The photo of former President Donald Trump flying with Jeffrey Epstein on what is presumably the Lolita Express was created using artificial intelligence and is not an authentic photo.
VERIFY ran the image through RevEye, a reverse image search tool. We found that the image first appeared online in May 2023. The only news stories the photo has appeared in are fact-checks debunking its authenticity, and it doesn’t appear in any reputable public photo databases.
These earlier versions of the image are a higher resolution than many of the recent viral posts. In analyzing the higher resolution version, we found some indications that the image was generated by AI.
AI images often include jumbled or warped backgrounds, objects and figures. This is particularly true when the image includes many small, highly detailed objects with a lot of variation. Sometimes, background people or objects will be incomplete or have smudged, indistinguishable features.
In this image of Trump and Epstein there is a warped, disembodied face floating in the doorway behind Trump’s right shoulder. The food items to Epstein’s left are also so warped they are difficult or impossible to identify.
We also ran the image through multiple AI image detection tools, and they marked the photo as AI-generated. One tool, Illuminarty, said the probability the image is AI is 99.4%. Another tool, Hive, said there’s a 100% likelihood the image is AI-generated.
There are real photos and videos of Trump and Epstein together. Those photos were taken between the early 1990s to the early 2000s. Many of them were taken at Trump’s Mar-a-Lago estate in Palm Beach, Florida.
Trump is just one of several famous individuals photographed with Epstein or Ghislaine Maxwell, Epstein’s girlfriend who was convicted of sex trafficking girls for Epstein, and frequently brought up in online discussions about Epstein. Other such individuals include Prince Andrew, Bill Clinton and Elon Musk.
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