Epstein lawyer: Bondi, Trump not withholding client list

David Schoen, a former attorney for the late Jeffrey Epstein, said Tuesday that President Trump and Attorney General Pam Bondi were not withholding a so-called client list for the disgraced financier.

Schoen, who helped secure Epstein’s 2008 plea deal on state prostitution charges, argued that the public’s push for the release of names is based on fallacies. 

“I don’t believe for a second there’s a client list out there. That wasn’t Jeffrey Epstein,” he said during an appearance on NewsNation’s “Cuomo.”

The lawyer also signaled that his then-client had "no plan" to blackmail the people in his inner circle — a conspiracy theory that gained prominence after Epstein's death in 2019.

Investigators did recover 300 gigabytes of data held by the deceased financier that included graphic images of minors, lists of victim names and likenesses, physical descriptions, places of birth, associates and their employment history, according to a July memo released by the Justice Department and FBI. 

That memo, which has sparked backlash, also concluded that Epstein did not keep a list and that his death in his New York City jail cell was a suicide.

“I know that people want to see it as a certain period of interest in all of these things,” Schoen told host Chris Cuomo, when asked about whether officials in the Trump administration were withholding names.

“It’s tantalizing, but I don’t think that information is out there,” he added. 

Epstein’s former lawyer suggested that his client's connection to celebrities and political officials created a window for speculation. 

“You put the names out there, the fact that he knew Bill Richardson, [Bill Clinton, Prince Andrew, etc., doesn’t mean that they did nefarious, illegal conduct with him," he said. "But people start drawing rumors and making claims."

“Also, the accusers demanded a certain level of privacy, so the judge balanced that when the parties came before him, and that’s why he kept some of those files private,” Schoen added.

Alan Dershowitz, another one of Epstein’s former litigators, has also said that there was never a client list but he noted that accusers have named wealthy men in their affidavits.

“There are several of them from accusers that accuse Jeffrey — that accuse various people of having improper sex, and that has been redacted, the names of the people accused have been blacked out. Now, of course, because I was lawyer and I did all the investigations, I know who all these people are,” Dershowitz said Monday on “Cuomo."

“Some of them were previously in office. Some of them are dead. But there is no client list,” he added. “And the redactions could be undone if you go to court.”

Chaos around the files has roiled the GOP in recent days. Trump and Bondi, however, have doubled down on the memo's findings, with the president pushing those in his base to move on from the topic.

"I don’t understand it, why they would be so interested. He’s been dead for a long time. He was never a big factor in terms of life," he told reporters Tuesday. "I don’t understand what the interest and what the fascination is. I really don’t." And the credible information has been given,” Trump told reporters as he departed an event in Pennsylvania."