Trump admin says Democrats created Epstein files, denies ‘client list' exists
In a statement posted on his Truth Social account on Saturday, Trump wrote, 'Why are we giving publicity to Files written by Obama, Crooked Hillary, Comey, Brennan, and the Losers and Criminals of the Biden Administration?'
'They created the Epstein Files,' he continued.
('Epstein files' is a general term referring to legal documents evidencing Epstein's criminal activity, such as court filings and depositions.)
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Until recently, the Trump administration said the files included a 'client list ' — a roster of well-known names believed to have been connected to the financier or who may have been involved in illicit activities run by him.
But, on July 7, Attorney General Pam Bondi backtracked on a narrative that the Trump administration helped promote, saying Jeffrey Epstein did not maintain a 'client list,' and that there were no more files related to the wealthy businessman's sex trafficking.
The announcement marked a public U-turn and angered MAGA supporters who were banking on the list being made public in the hopes of exposing and implicating their political opponents.
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From left, American real estate developer Donald Trump and his girlfriend (and future wife), former model Melania Knauss, financier (and future convicted sex offender) Jeffrey Epstein, and British socialite Ghislaine Maxwell pose together at the Mar-a-Lago club, Palm Beach, Florida, February 12, 2000. Davidoff Studios / Getty Images
Bondi suggested in a Fox News interview earlier this year that such a document was 'sitting on my desk' for review.
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For weeks, she promised that more material was going to be released — 'It's a new administration and everything is going to come out to the public,' she said at one point — after a first document dump she had hyped revealed nothing new of note.
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After the first release fell flat, Bondi said officials were poring over a 'truckload' of previously withheld evidence she said had been handed over by the FBI.
A small batch of documents released in February included copies of flight logs from Epstein's private plane, which have long been available in multiple court cases, and a heavily-redacted photocopy of an address book purportedly compiled by Epstein and his longtime confidante, Ghislaine Maxwell, which has been cited in media accounts for many years.
The Justice Department also released a blacked-out list of 254 masseuses and an evidence list showing entries for more than 150 items, including nude images, massage tables, sex toys and other items. Epstein was known to hire underage girls as masseuses and then encourage them to have sex with him and his clients.
In his statement on Saturday, Trump said his political adversaries were to blame for the attention on the Epstein files, referencing several seemingly unrelated conspiracy theories in the process, including the 'Stolen Election of 2020,' and complaining about 'Radical Left Lunatics,' asking why they didn't release 'The Epstein Files.'
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'If there was ANYTHING in there that could have hurt the MAGA Movement, why didn't they use it?' he wrote.
'One year ago our Country was DEAD, now it's the 'HOTTEST' Country anywhere in the World,' he concluded in his Truth Social post. 'Let's keep it that way, and not waste Time and Energy on Jeffrey Epstein, somebody that nobody cares about.'
In June, at the height of Trump's public spat with Elon Musk, his former adviser and Department of Government Efficiency (DOGE) head, the Tesla owner claimed in a post on X that Trump's name was in the Epstein files.
2:52
Musk says Trump 'is in the Epstein files' amid escalating feud
It was President Trump, during his first term in office, who ordered the arrest of Epstein for sex trafficking of minors in July 2019.
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A month later, awaiting trial, Epstein died in his prison cell and the New York City medical examiner ruled his death a suicide.
The president's most recent comments marked a change of tune from days prior, when he attempted to shut down a line of questioning over Bondi's controversial report denying the existence of the list.
'Are people still talking about this guy, this creep?' he said before Bondi could respond.
–With files from Global News' Michelle Butterfield and The Associated Press
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