Fox News apologises for ‘mistakenly’ cropping Trump out of photo with Jeffrey Epstein and Ghislaine Maxwell

Photo featuring future president and first lady alongside convicted paedophile and alleged accomplice has been widely distributed before

Fox News has apologised for “mistakenly” cropping Donald Trump out of a picture featuring Jeffrey Epstein and Ghislaine Maxwell that it displayed during an item about Ms Maxwell’s arrest.

The full picture, which has been widely distributed before, features Epstein with his left arm around Ms Maxwell and Melania Trump (then Knauss) to his right, with Donald Trump holding her by the waist.

As cropped by the network, the picture still features Ms Trump, albeit in a pose that makes her hard to recognise, but all that’s visible of the president are his fingertips, just above Ms Trump’s left hip.

Most remarkably of all, the crop creates an unusually slim portrait orientation, even though the network displayed it on a wide background with ample room for the full frame.

The photo was shown on the show American News HQ during an interview with lawyer Jordan Merson, who represents eight people accusing Epstein and Ms Maxwell of abuse.

According to a network spokesperson, the crop was an error. “On Sunday, 5 July, a report on Ghislaine Maxwell during Fox News Channel’s America’s News HQ mistakenly eliminated President Donald Trump from a photo alongside then Melania Knauss, Jeffrey Epstein and Maxwell. We regret the error.”

It is well-known that Mr Trump and Epstein were friends for a time, not just passing acquaintances. The two can be seen partying together in footage shot at Mr Trump’s Mar-a-Lago resort in 1992, and in 2002, a New York magazine profile of the convicted paedophile quoted the now-president describing their connection.

“I’ve known Jeff for 15 years,” he told the magazine. “Terrific guy … He’s a lot of fun to be with. It is even said that he likes beautiful women as much as I do, and many of them are on the younger side.”

Fox News is often accused of pandering to the president and parroting White House lines, but has also been considered an influence on him, with both officials and conservative commentators using appearances on it to propagate ideas and messages that they can be certain the president will see.

In fact, it is so established that the president routinely watches Fox News that anti-Trump groups have been able to strategically rile him by placing ads in the network’s commercial breaks.

However, Mr Trump has lately expressed impatience with some of the network’s shows, recently tweeting that its weekend programming was “getting into @CNN and MSNDC (sic) territory” and complaining that the network is running “suppression polls” – ie poll numbers that show him losing to Joe Biden by a humiliating margin.