What was claimed
An image shows Donald Trump embracing convicted sex offender Jeffrey Epstein.
Our verdict
This picture has been edited. The original photograph showed Mr Trump with his daughter Ivanka. Her face has been edited out and replaced with Epstein’s.
An altered image appearing to show US President Donald Trump embracing convicted sex offender Jeffrey Epstein is circulating on social media.
Overlaid text says: “Never met the guy!!!”. But the image has been edited. The original shows President Trump with his daughter Ivanka in 1995. Ivanka’s face has been replaced with a picture of Epstein, who died by suicide in 2019 while awaiting trial on sex trafficking charges.
While this image of the two embracing is fake, there are real photographs and video footage of President Trump and Epstein together.
The fake has been spreading online for at least five years. Although the image is crude, with clear signs of manipulation, it does appear that some people online believe it is genuine.
We have not been able to find evidence that President Trump has ever denied knowing Mr Epstein. Indeed he has said he did know him in interviews in the past.
Altered and manipulated videos and images can cause misinformation to spread widely online. It’s important to consider whether something is genuine before sharing. Our guides to spotting misleading images and videos can help you to do this.
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 altered because the original image has been edited to include Epstein’s face.
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