What was claimed
An image shows former US president Donald Trump sitting next to convicted sex offender Jeffrey Epstein and a young girl.
Our verdict
The image isn’t real and was likely generated by Artificial Intelligence (AI).
Image of Donald Trump with Jeffrey Epstein and young girl is fake
8 July 2024
An image supposedly showing former US president Donald Trump sitting with convicted sex offender Jeffrey Epstein and a young girl was almost certainly created using Artificial Intelligence (AI).
The picture has been shared across Threads, and over 7,200 times on X (formerly known as Twitter) in recent days.
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Where does the image come from?
There are several clues in the picture which indicate it was likely generated using AI tools, especially in the slightly larger version that shows more of the ‘background’. These include Mr Trump only appearing to have one leg, while Epstein seems to have neither of his legs and looks like he is emerging from the sofa.
A young girl next to Epstein appears to only have three fingers and there are abnormalities in the left sleeve of Mr Trump’s jacket which covers Epstein’s chest.
Epstein died by suicide in 2019 while awaiting trial on sex trafficking charges.
The image was previously shared widely in January 2024 when a judge unsealed documents in the case against Ghislaine Maxwell, who was jailed for 20 years in 2022 for helping Epstein abuse young girls. They included testimony which mentioned Mr Trump in passing, but the documents contained no alleged wrongdoing by Mr Trump.
Full Fact has debunked other AI images, and probable deepfake videos and audio of politicians, including of Israel’s Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, French President Emmanuel Macron, Ukraine’s President Volodymyr Zelenskyy and London Mayor Sadiq Khan.
You can read our guide to spotting AI-generated images here.
This article is part of our work fact checking potentially false pictures, videos and stories on Facebook. You can read more about this—and find out how to report Facebook content—here. For the purposes of that scheme, we’ve rated this claim as false the image of Donald Trump sitting alongside Jeffrey Epstein seems to have been generated using AI (Artificial Intelligence).