In early 2026, internet users shared an image (archived) that allegedly showed U.S. President Donald Trump standing next to the disgraced financier Jeffrey Epstein, who seemingly had one arm around what appeared to be a female teenager or very young woman. In the foreground of the image was a group of five children looking toward an unseen photographer. A handwritten caption at the top of the image read, "7/7/97."
The image circulated after a large Department of Justice file release in January 2026. That release covered the department's investigations into Epstein when he was alive and after his death in a Manhattan prison in 2019, as well as investigations into the people close to him. The FBI concluded in 2025 that Epstein died by suicide while awaiting trial on charges including sex trafficking of minors and conspiracy to commit sex trafficking of minors.
One Facebook user who posted the image in March wrote:
Release the files or STFU. This 1997 image of #Trump & #Epstein with children has been #fact checked and NOT AI. This should be an immediate arrest, let alone impeachment. See comments.
Snopes readers wrote in, asking about the photo and whether it was authentic, meaning not generated by artificial intelligence or doctored using digital editing tools.
Despite social media claims to the contrary, the image bore clear signs of the use of AI. Trump and three of the children shown had either too few or too many fingers or lacked detail in their hands or faces. The photo showed Epstein with dark or black hair, though a real photo taken in the weeks before July 7, 1997, for the reputable photo agency Getty Images showed Epstein with grey hair that appeared much lighter in photos.
Given the above, we've rated the image fake.
Image not linked to DOJ Epstein files releases
It was unclear at the time of this writing who created or edited the image. Reverse image searches found no trace of the photo online before the DOJ's Epstein files release on Jan. 30, 2026. Searches of parts of the image (the children in the foreground or Epstein or Trump behind them) also revealed no links to authentic photos, appearing to suggest that whoever created the image did so from scratch rather than by stitching together existing photos.
One Facebook user who posted (archived) the image on Jan. 31, the day after the DOJ released the batch of files, appeared to suggest it came from a since-deleted document in that release. That document, with the file name "EFTA01660679," was not online when we first published this fact check in February but was available in April.
According to the DOJ release, "EFTA01660679" did not include any images.
Hands, faces, hair, give fake image away
The image of Trump, Epstein, the young female and the children bore classic signs of AI use, even though the AI image detectors SightEngine and ZeroGPT found a low likelihood of AI generation. (It's worth noting that AI image detectors are not always reliable, especially for images generated using latest-generation AI models.)
The most obvious of these were poorly rendered hands, which is a common AI slip-up. Trump appeared to have only four fingers on his right hand, while a child at the front of the image appeared to have six on their left. Another child's hand also appeared misshapen. Additionally, the nose of one of the children appeared to blend into the child's face in an unnatural way.
(Facebook user Cee Postblocked)
Trump appeared older in the fake image than in a real photo of him and Epstein from Getty Images taken five months before the claimed July 7, 1997, caption on the fake image. Epstein's hair appeared dark brown or black in the alleged July 7, 1997, image, whereas a photo from June 20 that same year showed him with much lighter, grey hair. (It did not appear the Epstein dyed his hair, as photos from Getty Images throughout the 1990s and 2000s showed him with the same grey hair.)
Trump had a well-known and documented friendship with Epstein, according to reporting by The Associated Press. Trump previously said in 2019 that he hadn't spoken to Epstein "for 15 years." The U.S. president's name features repeatedly in the Epstein files. None of those mentions have led to formal charges as of this writing. Inclusion of someone's name or picture in the Epstein files does not necessarily imply wrongdoing.
Snopes has reported extensively on claims related to the Epstein files.