Author points to Trump's early venture as 'the smoking gun' on Epstein ties

Author and public speaker Steve Siebold made an explosive claim Thursday about President Donald Trump and his ties to Jeffrey Epstein, alleging that a “smoking gun” may be buried in the history of beauty pageants once owned by Trump.

Trump has been under renewed scrutiny in recent weeks amid the ongoing release of files related to Epstein, the wealthy financier who died in 2019 while awaiting trial on sex-trafficking charges and was known to have close ties with a number of powerful figures, including Trump.

While the newly released materials have already produced explosive allegations regarding Trump’s relationship with Epstein, Siebold argued that evidence potentially shedding further light on that relationship may lie within the operations and history of the Miss USA and Miss Teen USA pageants during the period they were owned by Trump.

“I’ve sat on this information for years, and I really didn’t want to get into this because this is not in my job description; it’s very dangerous to come out with this publicly,” Siebold said in a video published on TikTok Thursday.

“The smoking gun is Miss USA and Miss Teen USA, the pageants which Donald Trump owned for years. Now, how do I know? Because I was one of the judges in these pageants. I trained dozens and dozens of the winners and the runners up in public speaking to promote their platform.”

Trump owned Miss Universe – an international beauty pageant that includes Miss USA and Miss Teen USA – from 1996 through 2015. His ownership of Miss Universe came to an end after NBC – which from 2002 to 2015 maintained half-ownership of the Miss USA and Miss Teen USA pageants – terminated its business relationships with Trump due to his controversial statements about immigrants.

Former contestants of Miss Teen USA have accused Trump of walking into their dressing rooms, including former Miss Arizona Tasha Dixon, who told CBS that Trump “just came strolling right in” her dressing room in 2001 where “some girls were topless” and “others were naked.”

Trump himself appeared to corroborate this claim during a 2005 appearance on The Howard Stern Show, telling Stern that he’d “go backstage before a show and everyone’s getting dressed.”

Siebold warned those considering investigating Trump’s former beauty pageants that what they’d find would be “very, very upsetting.”

“Don’t call me, I’m not gonna comment, I’m not going on TV and talking about this; this is very dangerous to sit on,” Siebold said. “If you decide to pursue this in the media, be very, very careful. These people are dangerous.”