President Donald Trump is countering criticism of the Justice Department\u2019s failure to release much-hyped records around the Jeffrey Epstein sex trafficking case, trying to place blame on former government officials.
\nOn Tuesday, he accused former Presidents Barack Obama and Joe Biden, as well as former FBI Director James Comey, of making up such documents.
\n\u201cI would say that, you know, these files were made up by Comey, they were made up by Obama, they were made up by the Biden … ,\u201d Trump told members of the press at the White House before departing for an event in Pennsylvania.
\nThe president on Wednesday posted on Truth Social blaming Democrats in general for a \u201cnew SCAM\u201d that \u201cwe will forever call the Jeffrey Epstein Hoax.\u201d
\nEpstein was arrested in 2019 and found dead in his cell at a federal jail in New York City about a month later. Investigators concluded that he killed himself.
\nTrump presented no evidence in claiming that Democrats and Comey tampered with documents related to Epstein\u2019s case. Comey was fired in 2017, two years before Epstein\u2019s arrest, and has not returned to the government since. Obama was long gone from the White House by the time of Epstein\u2019s death. During Biden\u2019s presidency, the Justice Department put on trial Epstein co-conspirator Ghislaine Maxwell and secured a conviction against her, but there is zero indication that he or anyone from the White House had anything at any point to do with that case.
\nComey was a Republican for most of his adult life, but said in 2016 that he was that he was no longer registered with the party.
\nTrump suggested last year that he was considering releasing information about the Epstein case if he won a second term. In February, the Justice Department released some government documents regarding the case, but there were no new revelations. Then, earlier this month, it acknowledged that a months-long review of additional evidence in the government\u2019s possession had not revealed a list of clients and said no more files related to the case \u2014 other than a video meant to prove that Epstein killed himself \u2014 would be made public. The announcement led to outcry from Trump supporters.
\nAttorney General Pam Bondi appeared to intimate in a Fox News interview in February that a client list was \u201csitting on my desk\u201d to be reviewed for release. She said last week that she was referring to the Epstein case file generally, as opposed to an actual client list. Bondi and FBI Deputy Director Dan Bongino then had a contentious conversation at the White House as backlash grew to the Justice Department\u2019s decision to withhold records.
\nTrump, members of his administration and conservative influencers have spread unsubstantiated claims surrounding Epstein for years. Conspiracy theories about Epstein\u2019s death are a popular trope in right-wing spheres, playing on Trump\u2019s repeated promises to reveal and dismantle the \u201cdeep state\u201d \u2014 a supposed secret network of powerful people manipulating government decisions behind the scenes.
\nTrump\u2019s rivals have recently taken advantage of right-wing fissures over Epstein. Several Democratic lawmakers are calling for the release of all Epstein files and suggesting Trump could be resisting because he or someone close to him is featured in them. <\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
President Donald Trump is countering criticism of the Justice Department\u2019s failure to release much-hyped records around the Jeffrey Epstein sex trafficking case, trying to place blame on former government officials. On Tuesday, he accused former Presidents Barack Obama and Joe Biden, as well as former FBI Director James Comey, of making up such documents. \u201cI …<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":4,"featured_media":83889,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[5],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-83868","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-world"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/nabanews.pk\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/83868","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/nabanews.pk\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/nabanews.pk\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/nabanews.pk\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/4"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/nabanews.pk\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=83868"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/nabanews.pk\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/83868\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":83893,"href":"https:\/\/nabanews.pk\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/83868\/revisions\/83893"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/nabanews.pk\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/83889"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/nabanews.pk\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=83868"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/nabanews.pk\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=83868"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/nabanews.pk\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=83868"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}