‘The whole thing was a fake': Trump says Democrats could have ‘put things in' the Epstein file
Sitting next to British Prime Minister Sir Keir Starmer during an hour-long media availability in Scotland, Trump called the continuing furor over the case of Epstein, who died by suicide in 2019 while awaiting trial on federal sex trafficking charges, 'a hoax that's been built up way beyond proportion' and accused his predecessor of having tampered with the infamous case files.
'Those files were run by the worst scum on Earth. They were run by Comey, they were run by Garland, they were run by Biden, and all of the people that actually ran the government, including the auto pen. Those files were run for four years by those people. If they had anything, I assume they would have released it,' Trump said Monday.
The president made his claims about a week after a Wall Street Journal report stated that officials told him his name was in the files. Being mentioned does not mean wrongdoing and hundreds of names are reportedly included.
Trump's administration has created uproar among its base after a July memo from the Department of Justice that stated that Epstein had no so-called 'client list' and that no more information would be released. That was after Attorney General Pam Bondi had claimed for months that officials were reviewing documents. The decision not to release more information was met with anger and Democrats and Republicans have called on Trump to release more from the investigation.
On Monday, Trump also suggested that his adversaries could have 'easily put something in the files that's a phony' and compared the hypothetical result of such tampering to the infamous, salacious and unverified dossier on his alleged links to Russia that was compiled by ex-MI6 officer Christopher Steele during the 2016 presidential election.
'Christopher Steele, as an example, wrote a book a dossier. We call it the fake news dossier. And the whole thing was a fake. The whole thing was a fake. They could put things in the file that are fake, but those files were run by bad, sick people,' he said.
Continuing, the president mused aloud about why the previous Democratic administration didn't release any damaging information in the case files about him during last year's election, when revelations about his relationship with the infamous sex trafficker might have cut into the lead he held over his opponents, then-president Joe Biden and later then-vice president Kamala Harris.
'The whole thing was a fake. They could put things in the file that are fake, but those files were run by bad, sick people. If they had anything, why didn't they use it when I was killing Joe?' Trump asked the media in attendance.
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 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 after 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, many of Trump's most fervent boosters have cried foul, leading to a rare split between the president and a significant segment of his political base.
Trump is said to be 'exasperated' by the scandal and is growing 'increasingly frustrated' with how his administration has handled the Epstein files saga and media attention on the president's ties to the sex offender.
During a meeting with European Commission President Ursula von der Leyen on Sunday, Trump groused about the way the burgeoning scandal has gained traction with Democrats in Congress, some of whom have joined with members of his own party to push for the Justice Department to release more information from the case files.
'All they know how to do is talk and think about conspiracy theories and nonsense,' he said. 'If they'd waste their time talking about America being great again, it would be so much nicer.'
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