The Intercept

11/14/2025

In total, the exchanges about Trump between Thomas and Epstein amount to a series of tips about the president’s behavior. And these tips came from a known associate of the president, a convicted pedophile. Little of the information given to Thomas, however, ever saw the light of day — not in Thomas’s reporting, not in the New York Times, and not in any other outlets. The details are only now emerging with the release of Thomas’s cozy emails with Epstein.

“It would be useful for readers who have become aware of this to know more from the Times about who knew what, when,” said Margaret Sullivan, a media critic and a former public editor at The New York Times. “I think it’s really important for reporters to have their main constituency in mind, and that is the public.”

“Reporters have sources and some sources are unsavory or worse. But it’s really important to have the public interest at heart,” Sullivan said.

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When Trump launched his bid for the White House in 2015, his past relationship with Epstein — the men were even neighbors in Palm Beach, Florida — brought fresh scrutiny. One of the focuses was Thomas’s 2002 New York Magazine profile of Epstein, the first recorded interaction between the journalist and the pedophile.

The New York Magazine story is written in a glamorous, gossipy style that cast Epstein as an “international moneyman of mystery,” and is held up by Trump’s critics as evidence that the president knew a thing or two about Epstein’s obsession with underage girls. The innuendo flowed from a now-infamous quote where Trump spoke winkingly of Epstein’s predilection for younger women.

“I’ve known Jeff for fifteen years. Terrific guy,” Thomas quoted Trump as saying. “He’s a lot of fun to be with. It is even said that he likes beautiful women as much as I do, and many of them are on the younger side.”

Citing the future president’s “terrific guy” quote, Thomas wrote in a December 2015 email that he was fielding inquiries about Epstein and Trump.

“Now everyone coming to me thinking I have juicy info on you and Trump,” Thomas wrote. “Because of this.”

Two minutes later, Epstein replied.

“would you like photso of donald and girls in bikinis in my kitchen,” he asked.

“Yes!!!” Thomas wrote back.

Epstein continued the exchange without following through on his offer.

More than a year later, Thomas was apparently still fielding questions about Epstein, this time from John Connolly, the former New York cop-turned-journalist who published a book on Epstein in 2017. On June 1, 2016, Thomas emailed Epstein to tip him off about the fresh round of questions.

“Keep getting calls from that guy doing a book on you — John Connolly. He seems very interested in your relationship with the news media,” Thomas wrote.

According to Thomas, Connolly had doubts about the veracity of Trump’s “terrific guy” quote from 2002.

“One oddity: he said he had been told that that quote from Trump about you in the original NY Mag story had been manufactured ie, that I did not actually speak to Donald,” Thomas wrote. “Which is bull shit of course.”

Later in the thread, Landon asked Epstein if he too had been questioned about his relationship to the GOP presidential hopeful.

“are you still getting calls from reporters re Trump?” Thomas asked.

“everyone except the NYT it seems :)” Epstein replied.