The White House is struggling to explain President Donald Trump’s insistence that the bipartisan clamor for release of case files from the prosecution of multimillionaire sex trafficker Jeffrey Epstein is part of a “hoax” generated by his political foes.
The pushback continued in the White House briefing room Thursday as even some of the president’s most fervent supporters continue to press for more transparency around the notorious case.
Press Secretary Karoline Leavitt faced pointed questions from reporters on why Trump continues to lash out and insist there’s nothing to see regarding the prosecution of the Epstein, with whom he maintained a friendship for years.
Asked what about the Epstein case, which featured multiple victims who testified about being trafficked and raped by Epstein, was a “hoax,” as Trump posted on social media in a rant Wednesday, Leavitt ignored the president’s claim that the entire matter had been made up from whole cloth.
Instead she said the “hoax” status assigned by Trump stems from the fact that Democrats are now joining his supporters in pushing for the case files to be made public.
“The President is referring to the fact that Democrats have now seized on this as if they ever wanted transparency when it comes to Jeffrey Epstein, which is an asinine suggestion for any Democrat to make,” she said.
“The Democrats had control of this building, the White House, for four years, and they didn’t do a dang thing when it come came to transparency in regards to Jeffrey Epstein and his heinous crimes.”
Trump made a series of angry social media posts and public statements a day earlier in which he assailed his political base on Truth Social for pushing for the so-called “Epstein Files” to be made public and complained that his “PAST supporters have bought into this ‘bullshit,’ hook, line, and sinker.”
He went on to disavow those supporters who still want his administration to come clean on the case files assembled as federal investigators and prosecutors built a case against Epstein for sex trafficking during his first term, writing: “Let these weaklings continue forward and do the Democrats work, don’t even think about talking of our incredible and unprecedented success, because I don’t want their support anymore!
Trump also attacked his supporters and called them “stupid” and “foolish” during an Oval Office media availability in which he claimed the entire case had been cooked up by Democrats to damage him.
Leavitt credited Trump with having commissioned an “exhaustive review” of the case files by FBI Director Kash Patel and Attorney General Pam Bondi, calling the law enforcement officials “great patriots” and “some of the most trusted voices in the Republican Party movement.”
“They spent many months going through all of the files related to Jeffrey Epstein, and they concluded what they found in that memo, which they drafted and they released. And so the President has been transparent. He has followed through on his promises to the American people, but he doesn’t like to see Democrats in the mainstream media covering this like it’s the biggest story that the American people care about,” she added.
When The Independent asked if Trump would consider pardoning Epstein’s convicted co-conspirator, Ghislane Maxwell, if she is in prison as a result of a “hoax,” Leavitt declined to respond.
The case of Epstein, a former math teacher turned financier who was arrested for alleged sex trafficking by federal authorities in 2019, has been a longtime fixation for many of Trump’s Maga supporters who believe they contain damaging information on prominent Democrats and other liberal celebrities.
For years, the president’s supporters have pushed for release of what they believe was a list of powerful people to whom Epstein is alleged to have trafficked young girls, as well as other information they believe would reflect negatively on members of the Democratic Party, various Hollywood celebrities, and other purported elites who they believe to be part of a sinister cabal controlling world events.
Trump has winked and nodded at such beliefs and had indicated during his 2024 campaign that his administration would release the documents in question if he were victorious in last year’s presidential election.
But last week, the DOJ and FBI issued a memo stating that there was no such client list and announcing that no additional files relating to the case would be made public.
The agencies had determined that no “further disclosure would be appropriate or warranted,” much was sealed by a court to protect Epstein’s victims, and “only a fraction” of it “would have been aired publicly had Epstein gone to trial.”
Additionally, the memo said that no further charges were expected as investigators “did not uncover evidence that could predicate an investigation against uncharged third parties.”
The president was once closely associated with and spoke highly of the disgraced financier and his proclivity for surrounding himself with young women, while Epstein at one point described himself as Trump’s “best friend,” leading to speculation that the president has been trying to prevent release of the files despite a campaign promise to do so because their content would reflect poorly on him.
