Do Joe Biden or Barack Obama appear in Jeffrey Epstein's flight logs or address books?
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Executive summary
Publicly released Epstein materials — including flight logs and address books that news organizations uploaded to DocumentCloud and searchable databases compiled by outlets like Business Insider — contain no entries for Joe Biden or Barack Obama; multiple fact-checks and archival reviews reach the same conclusion [1] [2]. Social-media lists and viral images claiming otherwise have been repeatedly debunked as hoaxes or errors, though political actors continue to dispute the provenance and completeness of Epstein-related files [3] [4] [5].
1. What the public records show — clear negative searches
Extensive searches of the flight logs and Epstein address-book materials that have been made public turn up no matches for “Joe Biden” or “Barack Obama,” and newsrooms that rehosted the documents on DocumentCloud and produced searchable indexes report the same absence [1]. PolitiFact’s and other watchdogs’ recounting of the released material likewise finds no evidence that either man appears in the flight records or black book fragments that have circulated in the document dumps [2].
2. Where the claim emerged — viral lists and misattributed screenshots
The allegation that Biden or Obama are named on Epstein lists has been traced to recycled internet hoaxes and annotated screenshots shared on social networks; fact-checkers have identified fake lists that append high-profile names (including Biden and Obama) to flight-log or “island visitor” lists without documentary support [1] [3] [4]. Lead Stories and other debunkers documented earlier viral items that mimicked the flight-log format but were fabricated or conflated with unrelated lists [4].
3. Competing narratives and political framing
Political actors have leveraged both the documented record and unverified claims: some conservatives and Trump allies assert the existence of withheld “client lists” or falsified files implicating opponents, while other outlets and investigators emphasize that most names circulated online do not appear in the actual court or estate records [6] [7]. Former President Trump has publicly accused Obama, Biden and others of manufacturing Epstein files — a claim fact-checkers say is inconsistent with the timeline of federal Epstein probes and with what the public materials show [5] [2].
4. What independent reporting and archives add
Long-form reporting and curated document guides have cataloged which prominent figures do appear in Epstein-related records (for example, Bill Clinton appears in flight logs), and those inventories consistently distinguish verified entries from rumor-driven lists; media collections and guides published since 2019 and updated through recent releases continue to show no verified entries for Biden or Obama in the flight logs or black book material made public so far [8] [9] [1].
5. Limits of the public record and honest caveats
The conclusion that Biden and Obama do not appear in the publicly released Epstein flight logs or address books rests on the documents that have been disclosed and indexed; reporting makes clear there are still government-held materials and contested estate files that different actors have pushed to release or to keep sealed, and this analysis cannot assert what may exist in documents not yet produced to the public [9] [7]. Fact-checkers and newsrooms explicitly note that absence from released flight logs is not equivalent to proving a universal negative about any unreleased evidence — only that current public documents do not show those names [1] [2].
6. Bottom line and why the story persists
Multiple independent fact-checks and document indexes show Joe Biden and Barack Obama are not named in Epstein’s public flight logs or address-book materials; nevertheless, the story persists because of recycled hoax lists, political incentives to inflate or suppress records, and ongoing disputes over withheld government files — a mix that fuels continued confusion even when the released documents say otherwise [1] [3] [6].