Fears foreign countries may be using Epstein files as leverage on Trump
At a press conference during his trip to Scotland on Monday, Trump said that all of the hubbub about the files was a 'hoax', while also noting that the 'files were run by sick, sick people' during the last administration who can 'put things in the file that was a fake.'
Trump is known to have run in the same social circles as Epstein, and the two were photographed at events together in the late 1990's and early 2000s. Their friendship doesn't mean the president took part in any inappropriate activity.
A Wall Street Journal Report released earlier this month reported that Trump was one of Epstein's friends who wrote him a letter for his 50th birthday in 2003, accompanied by a sketch of a naked woman, prompting president to deny that reporting and sue the paper.
The Trump administration's refusal to release any more files about Jeffrey Epstein has dominated the news cycle for most of the month and both the president's political allies and adversaries are growing weary.
Even members of the president's own political party have been critical of the administration's handling of the files. Eric Burlison, a Missouri House Republican, told CNN's Manu Raju Sunday that part of the issue is 'that there were false expectations that are created, and that's a political mistake.'
'I think that saying that you're going to be able to deliver when you haven't even looked at all of the files, what's available, was probably a misstep,' Burlison said. During the course of his 2024 presidential campaign, Trump promised to release the files, but has yet to do so in his second term.
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