Their release comes as the US president scrambles to distance himself from Epstein – whose relationship dates back to the 1980s – claiming he is facing a “witch hunt” amid mounting pressure for him to order the release of secret Epstein files.

In a brief call with CNN on Tuesday, Mr Trump, asked about the wedding photos, responded, “You’ve got to be kidding me,” before repeatedly calling the news network “fake news” and hanging up the phone.

Steven Cheung, the White House communications director, called the photos “nothing more than out-of-context frame grabs of innocuous videos and pictures of widely attended events to disgustingly infer something nefarious”.

He added: “The fact is that the president kicked him out of his club for being a creep. This is nothing more than a continuation of the fake news stories concocted by the Democrats and the liberal media.”

The comments followed a recent decision by the US Justice Department (DoJ) not to release secret files related to the deceased sex trafficker, days after The Wall Street Journal reported that Mr Trump sent Epstein a salacious birthday greeting in 2003 in which he expressed close friendship.

In what is shaping up to be the biggest crisis of his presidency, Mr Trump’s refusal to release all the information the US government holds on the case has stirred up furious backlash among even some of his most loyal supporters in the Maga movement.