Purported Deepfake Image Allegedly Circulating of Donald Trump with Underage Girl at Jeffrey Epstein's Private Island

A purported deepfake image allegedly depicting Donald Trump with an underage girl at Jeffrey Epstein's private island in 1992 has reportedly been circulating on social media.

Risk classification

• Primary risk domain: 4 Malicious actors
• Primary risk subdomain: 4.3 Fraud, scams, and targeted manipulation

The incident involves the creation of a highly damaging and humiliating synthetic image of a specific individual (Donald Trump) to manipulate public beliefs about his past conduct.

Additional risk subdomains

• 3.1 False or misleading information: The AI-generated image was used to spread false claims and mislead social media users about historical events.

Causal factors

• Entity: Human
• Intent: Intentional
• Timing: Post-deployment

The creation and dissemination of the deepfake image was an intentional act by human users to spread misinformation, utilizing a post-deployment generative AI model.

EU AI Act risk tier

• Risk tier: 3 Limited Risk

Limited Risk: The report describes the creation and dissemination of AI-generated content such as deepfakes, which fall under transparency obligations to ensure users are aware the content is synthetic.

AI system and alleged parties

• AI system: AI or Not, unspecified (Optic)
• AI purpose: Deepfake Image Generation; Image Verification
• Behaviour type: Tool
• Alleged developer: Unknown deepfake technology developers, Unknown AI image generator developer
• Alleged deployer: Unknown malicious actors, Unknown deepfake creator
• Alleged harmed parties: Truth, Epistemic integrity, Donald Trump

Harm severity

Severity ratings are based on this scale.

Highest direct severity in any category: Substantial. Severity is scored from Negligible to Catastrophic in each harm category, for harm the reports describe as caused directly or indirectly by the AI system.

• Physical: direct Negligible, indirect Negligible
• Infrastructure: direct Negligible, indirect Negligible
• Property: direct Negligible, indirect Negligible
• Financial: direct Negligible, indirect Negligible
• Environmental: direct Negligible, indirect Negligible
• Malicious content: direct Substantial, indirect Negligible
• Differential treatment: direct Negligible, indirect Negligible
• Civil rights: direct Negligible, indirect Negligible
• Democracy: direct Negligible, indirect Negligible
• Privacy: direct Negligible, indirect Negligible
• Psychological: direct Negligible, indirect Negligible
• Epistemic: direct Minor, indirect Negligible
• Child sexual exploitation and abuse: direct Negligible, indirect Negligible

Malicious content

Reported: Yes, the report describes a deepfake image created to falsely depict a political figure engaging in misconduct with an underage girl.

Directly caused: The deepfake image was generated using AI and shared on social media to defame Donald Trump.

Epistemic

Reported: Yes, the report describes widely shared misinformation where social media users believed the fake image was real evidence of misconduct.

Directly caused: The AI-generated image misled social media users into believing Trump visited Epstein's island with a 13-year-old girl.

Inferred additional harm: The circulation of such realistic fakes contributes to a broader erosion of shared reality and public trust in photographic evidence.

People affected

• Occurrences reported: 1
• People reportedly harmed: 1
• People reportedly exposed: 10000

Potential causes

Technology

• Generative AI Capabilities: AI tools enable easy creation of highly realistic synthetic images.
• Flawed AI Rendering: AI model left artifacts like six fingers and mismatched eye reflections.

Human Factors

• Uncritical Sharing by Users: Social media users shared the image as real without checking facts.
• Political Weaponization: Using synthetic media to spread damaging political narratives.

Process and Methods

• Inadequate Content Detection: Platforms lacked active automated filters to block synthetic misinformation.

Information quality

• Classification confidence: High
• Reason for confidence: The report clearly details the nature of the deepfake, the specific visual flaws identified by experts, and the verification by Optic's detection tool. There is no ambiguity about the image being fake or the role of AI in its creation.
• Ambiguities identified: The specific generative AI model used to create the deepfake is not identified in the report.

An AI-generated deepfake depicting former President Donald Trump was circulated on social media to spread political misinformation. While the image was quickly debunked by experts, the incident highlights the evolving threat of generative AI being used to conduct targeted political manipulation and erode public trust in visual media, posing a minor but persistent threat to societal stability and democratic processes.

• Overall national security impact: Minor
• Scope: Single nation
• Primary target: United States
• Alleged perpetrator: Unknown

Threat characteristics

• Imminence: Long-term. Represents an ongoing strategic concern regarding generative AI in elections rather than an active, imminent national security crisis.
• Autonomy: Human-controlled. The AI system acted as a tool directly prompted and controlled by human actors to generate the image.
• Novelty: Evolved capability. Demonstrates an evolved capability in the realism of generative AI images, building on established deepfake methods.

Impact by dimension

• Physical security: Negligible. No physical systems, infrastructure, or human safety were threatened by this digital image.
• Information security: Minor. Represents a deepfake disinformation effort targeting a major political figure, but was rapidly identified and debunked by fact-checkers, limiting its intelligence or national security impact.
• Sovereignty: Minor. While targeting a presidential candidate, the incident did not disrupt actual government operations, elections, or constitutional processes.
• Economic security: Negligible. No impact on financial systems, strategic industries, or technological competitive advantage.
• Societal stability: Minor. Contributes to epistemic harm and erosion of public trust in photographic evidence, though it did not cause widespread civil unrest or mass human rights violations.