US Politics
After outing Trump as an ‘FBI informant’ on Epstein case, House Speaker Mike Johnson tries to explain himself
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House Speaker Mike Johnson has walked back his head-scratching statement that Donald Trump was an “FBI “informant” against Jeffrey Epstein after the Louisiana Republican was pressed on the president’s claim that the case against the sex offender is a “Democrat hoax.”
Last week, after members of Congress heard testimony from Epstein’s accusers, Johnson told reporters that the president’s repeated claims have been “misrepresented.”
“He’s not saying what Epstein did was a hoax. It’s a terrible, unspeakable evil, and he believes that himself,” Johnson said on Capitol Hill on September 5.
“When he first heard the rumor, he kicked him out of Mar-a-Lago. He was an informant to try to take this stuff down,” he added. “The president knows and has great sympathy for the women who have suffered these unspeakable harms. It’s detestable to him … What he’s talking about is the Democrats who are doing this with impure moments.”
On Monday, Johnson’s office sought to clarify his remarks.
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“The Speaker is reiterating what the victims’ attorney said, which is that Donald Trump — who kicked Epstein out of Mar-a-Lago — was the only one more than a decade ago willing to help prosecutors expose Epstein for being a disgusting child predator,” a spokesperson told The Independent.
Speaking to reporters on Capitol Hill on Monday, Johnson said he didn’t use the “right terminology,” but he said he believed Trump removing Epstein from Mar-a-Lago had helped federal law enforcement in its investigation.
“I don’t know if I used the right terminology, but that’s common knowledge, and everybody knows that,” Johnson said.
“So this is much ado about nothing,” he added.
Epstein’s death in jail while awaiting trial on trafficking charges has fueled ongoing conspiracy theories of a government-wide cover-up to protect powerful public figures who exploited and abused young girls.
Trump and Epstein allegedly had a falling out in 2004 over a property dispute in Palm Beach, Florida, though Trump has recently stated that he had kicked Epstein out of his club for hiring workers away from him.
Trump, whose friendship with Epstein spanned more than a decade, insists that the public and press should move on from questions about the case. The Department of Justice stated earlier this year that there is “no basis to revisit the disclosure of those materials” despite demands for a full accounting of Epstein’s death and alleged ties to a wider child trafficking conspiracy.
Officials determined that “no further disclosure would be appropriate or warranted.”
Democratic members of Congress and a small group of Republicans have pushed for legislation that would pressure the Trump administration to release more documents about Epstein and his trafficking case,.
Several Epstein accusers provided lawmakers with emotional testimony last week alleging the years of abuse they suffered under the financier and his associate, Ghislaine Maxwell, who is serving a 20-year prison sentence after her conviction on sex trafficking charges tied to his crimes.
Brad Edwards, an attorney who represents many of the women, told reporters that Trump has done an “about-face” on Epstein since 2009. At the time, Trump “did not think that it was a hoax and was trying to help,” according to Edwards.
“And now it seems like all of a sudden somebody is in his ear, and he’s not,” he added. “So I’m hoping he’ll come back to where he was back in 2009, be on the side of the victims and stand with us.”
Edwards did not say whether Trump had cooperated with federal prosecutors or law enforcement at the time but claimed that Trump had “helped” Edwards.
“He got on the phone, he told me things that were helping our investigation,” Edwards said. “Our investigation wasn’t looking into him, but he was helping us then.”
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Asked by The Independent whether he was protecting powerful friends and Republican campaign donors by not releasing the entirety of the documents in the Epstein case, the president complained again of the so-called “hoax.”
“From what I understand, thousands of pages of documents have been given,” Trump said in the Oval Office last week. “But it’s really a Democrat hoax, because they’re trying to get people to talk about something that’s totally irrelevant to the success that we’ve had as a nation since I’ve been president.”
The White House said in a statement that the president “has always been committed to justice and transparency for these victims” and has released thousands of pages of documents to the congressional committee investigating the case.
Democrats had “ignored Epstein’s victims for years and are now only interested in them as a way to attack President Trump,” according to the White House.
The Republican-led House Oversight Committee released 30,000 pages of documents obtained by the Justice Department, though the vast majority were already publicly available.
One of the late sex offender’s victims, Chauntae Davies, said at a press conference on Capitol Hill that Epstein received “a free pass” from his crimes and routinely “bragged about his powerful friends,” including Trump.
Another survivor, Haley Robson, had even invited the president to meet with her.
“I am a registered Republican — not that that matters, because this is not political. However, I cordially invite you to the Capitol to meet me in person so you can understand this is not a hoax,” she said.
