Jimmy Kimmel Wants the Epstein Files Renamed After Donald Trump - and Says Everyone Should Help

Of all the things Donald Trump has tried to stamp his name on lately, Jimmy Kimmel reckons he found the one the president actually earned.

The Jimmy Kimmel Live! host kicked off a running bit on Wednesday proposing that the Jeffrey Epstein case documents be rebranded the 'Trump-Epstein files.' By Thursday night, he had slapped a trademark symbol on the graphic and was urging viewers to spread the name around.

It practically writes itself. Trump's administration has already renamed the U.S. Institute of Peace and the Kennedy Centre, and the president has been lobbying to get his name on Penn Station and Dulles Airport. So Kimmel went searching for something Trump, in his words, 'actually deserves to be part of.'

He landed on the Epstein files.

A Million Mentions and Four Computers

Kimmel did not invent the figure. Representative Jamie Raskin, the ranking Democrat on the House Judiciary Committee, told Axios that searching Trump's name in the unredacted Epstein files returned over a million results. Raskin later clarified he had typed 'Trump,' 'Donald' and 'Don' into the DOJ's search tool and acknowledged not every hit necessarily referred to the president.

None of that mattered much to Kimmel. On Thursday, he ran the graphic repeatedly, mocking JD Vance for weakly defending Trump while noting the president's name surfaces over a million times in what Kimmel now insists on calling the 'Trump-Epstein files.'

Then there was the access issue. The Justice Department gave lawmakers four computers at its headquarters to review the unredacted records. Four, for all 535 members of Congress. 'I called the Burbank Library today,' Kimmel said. 'They have 22 computers.'

Bondi's Binder and the 'Burn Book' Fallout

Jokes aside, the story underneath them is not particularly funny. Kimmel's Thursday monologue leaned into Attorney General Pam Bondi's contentious appearance before the House Judiciary Committee on 11 February, which he described as a five-hour ordeal. He was blunter about Bondi herself, joking she was the kind of neighbour you'd just move away from.

What made the segment more than late-night fodder was a photograph snapped during the hearing. It captured a page in Bondi's binder labelled 'Jayapal Pramila Search History,' listing the specific Epstein documents that Democratic Representative Pramila Jayapal had searched during her visit to the DOJ reading room. Jayapal confirmed every entry on the list was hers and accused the department of surveilling lawmakers. Even House Speaker Mike Johnson, who seldom breaks with the administration, called the tracking inappropriate.

What the Unredacted Epstein Files Contain

The politics behind all this are not going away. The DOJ released over 3.5 million Epstein-related documents earlier this month under the Epstein Files Transparency Act, which Trump signed into law in November 2025. Lawmakers from both parties have since accused the department of improperly blacking out names of powerful associates while leaving victim identities exposed, said the Huffington Post.

Among the material Raskin flagged was a 2009 email between Epstein and his associate Ghislaine Maxwell. In it, Epstein's lawyers recount a conversation with Trump in which the president is paraphrased as saying Epstein was a guest at Mar-a-Lago and was never asked to leave. That account directly contradicts what Trump has maintained for years. He has denied all wrongdoing and says he cut ties with Epstein in 2006. Epstein died in a Manhattan jail cell in 2019 while awaiting trial on sex trafficking charges.

A DOJ spokesperson said the department logs congressional searches to safeguard victim information. Raskin was not persuaded, calling it surveillance of sitting members of Congress and demanding answers from the department's inspector general.

Kimmel, for what it's worth, did not seem bothered by any of this. He told his audience he was getting the name trademarked and encouraged everyone to use it freely.