After the release of millions of documents related to the Jeffrey Epstein case at the end of January 2026, an old rumor resurfaced on social media. President Donald Trump had allegedly made 4,725 transfers to Epstein totaling 1.1 billion dollars. The claim spread rapidly, accompanied by angry comments and clear insinuations. It is false.
The origin was a speech by Senator Ron Wyden, Democrat from Oregon, in the US Senate in July 2025. Wyden spoke about Treasury Department records that his team was allowed to review in 2024 after the then administration under Joe Biden authorized it. In those documents, there were 4,725 transfers amounting to just under 1.1 billion dollars. The money flowed in and out of a single Epstein account. Wyden spoke of “more than 4,000 potential investigative leads” and urged the Department of Justice to pursue those trails. He did not mention Trump in that context. He did not say that Trump had been involved in those transactions, nor did he suggest that all or even part of the transfers had come from him. Nevertheless, the number was directly linked to the president on social media. A general financial investigation became a specific accusation.
Wyden had previously told the New York Times that his team had been examining Epstein’s financial network for three years. A staff member of the Senate Finance Committee later confirmed that the investigation had begun with the goal of closing legal loopholes in combating tax avoidance. Congressional investigations may only be conducted with a legislative purpose. Among those in focus was Leon Black, co founder of Apollo Global Management. According to the team, Black paid Epstein 170 million dollars for tax advice, a sum investigators considered disproportionate to the services provided. Black himself has a net worth in the tens of billions and would have had access to leading tax experts. The records also show that Epstein processed payments through several Russian banks that are now under sanctions. Many of the women and girls he exploited came from Russia, Belarus, Turkey, and other countries. The transfers were potential investigative leads, Wyden said. Nothing more.
At the same time, other false reports circulated around the released files. An alleged photo showing Jeffrey Epstein together with singer Courtney Love turned out to be a digital fabrication. The image came from a satire account that explicitly states in its profile description that its content is not real. Technical analysis also revealed a watermark indicating editing with AI tools. A real meeting between Epstein and Love is not documented
Equally fabricated was the story that Melania Trump and her son Barron Trump had opened a free hospital for the homeless. Facebook posts praised a “Hope Medical Center” as a new social project of the family. Research found no reports from reputable media outlets about such a hospital. The linked websites consisted of ad funded blogs featuring entirely invented stories about celebrities. The images used also showed clear signs of digital generation.
The episode of the 4,725 transfers shows how quickly complex investigative details are compressed into simple headlines. A number, an amount, a name - and from that a clear attribution of guilt emerges. In reality, Ron Wyden spoke of possible leads, not of evidence against Donald Trump. Anyone claiming otherwise mixes facts with insinuations. The Epstein case remains an international crime with open questions. But not every large number is proof against a specific person. And not every image is a document. In times of mass document releases, diligence determines what is information - and what is rumor.
More fake news here: File Fragments, AI Images, Invented Recipients - How a Targeted Epstein Fake World Is Built From Real Documents or The Epstein Fake Madness - Part 2 - How File Fragments Become Cannibalism and File Names Become “Evidence”
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