Image of Trump with young girl emerged after Epstein files dropped. There’s no proof it’s real

Shortly after the U.S. Department of Justice released a batch of files related to the late sex offender Jeffrey Epstein on Dec. 19, 2025, an image (archived) depicting President Donald Trump with a young girl — whose face was censored — on what appeared to be a private jet spread online. One post sharing the image on X, which received more than 27 million views as of this writing, read: “They forgot to delete this one.”

Many users replying to the post appeared to believe the image authentically depicted Trump with an unknown girl, while others claimed she was Ivanka Trump, the president’s eldest daughter. 

There were multiple signs the image was not authentic; however, we were not able to definitively determine the image was AI-generated.

First, the date in the upper right corner — “9   1’02” — is nonsensical. This could be camera malfunction, though it could also be an artifact of AI generation or an intentional edit to make the origins of the image difficult to trace.

(X user @keithedwards)

The earliest version of the image we could find appeared on social media user Keith Edwards’ platforms, including YouTube and X (archived). We reached out to Edwards via X and Instagram seeking comment about whether he created the image and whether it was AI-generated or otherwise altered, and will update this report should we learn more.

While Edwards’ YouTube account used the image as the thumbnail for a video titled “The FBI forgot to redact this,” and he mentioned “one file they forgot to redact” involving Trump “and a 14-year-old girl” (at 0:22), Edwards did not show the thumbnail image during the 10-minute video, indicating it was likely intended as clickbait. 

(YouTube account @keithedwards)

Edwards’ YouTube account was filled with other, similarly shocking thumbnails with expressive overlays of Edwards’ face combined with large, vague, bright yellow captions. These are all classic signs of content designed to be clickbait — content meant to attract viewers for ad revenue.

Reputable news media outlets have widely reported any appearance of Trump in the files that were released to the public on Dec. 19, but these reports did not include the image in question. A Google search of the keywords “trump” “child” “epstein” and “plane” revealed results related to other claims, but did not turn up the image in question. If it was authentic and still publicly available, reputable news media outlets likely would have reported on it.

(Google.com)

While the Trump administration has received criticism for at least 16 files disappearing from the government site after the DOJ released them on Dec. 19 with no notice to the public, Edwards posts claimed the image in question had not been deleted. However, it was not among the files we reviewed.

We’ve reported on several images of Trump with underage girls that were fake. We’ve also extensively reported on Trump’s relationship with Epstein over the years.

Sources