When he was a best-selling author with designs on running in Ohio’s Senate race four years ago, JD Vance was one of the multitudes of Republican figures who assailed the mainstream press for not giving enough attention to multimillionaire sex trafficker Jeffrey Epstein.
Now, as Donald Trump’s vice president, Vance would prefer Epstein stay out of the headlines.
Vance took to X on Thursday to grouse about the Wall Street Journal’s reporting on an alleged letter from Trump to the infamous pedophile that was reportedly part of a birthday album for Epstein’s 50th birthday.
The greeting is alleged to have included a sexually suggestive drawing and a reference to “secrets” both men shared.
In response, the vice president called the Journal’s story “complete and utter bull***t” and suggested the newspaper should be “ashamed” for having published it.
Vance’s admonishment represents a head-spinning reversal from the attitude he expressed in December 2021, when he wrote on the same platform (then known as Twitter) to ask what interest the U.S. government would have in “keeping Epstein’s clients secret.”
He also shared a post by conspiracy theorist Jack Posobiec alleging that the government had made a deal with Epstein co-conspirator and convicted sex trafficker Ghislaine Maxwell, purportedly to keep a “little black book” of her and Epstein’s contacts from being made public.
Continuing, he said: “If you're a journalist and you're not asking questions about this case you should be ashamed of yourself.”
The vice president’s about-face on how journalists should approach reporting on the infamous sex trafficker comes as the president has sought to quell an ongoing furor over Attorney General Pam Bondi’s decision to release a memorandum stating that there had not been any “client list” in the department’s files on Epstein.
Epstein, a math teacher turned financial adviser, who federal agents arrested on sex trafficking charges in July 2019, was found to have hanged himself roughly a month later in a Manhattan detention facility where he was awaiting trial.
Though it was officially ruled that he died by suicide, many dispute that conclusion, and questions have been raised regarding the circumstances surrounding his death at the Metropolitan Correctional Center.
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 had long winked and nodded at such beliefs and had 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 Bondi dropped the memo in which she and FBI Director Kash Patel wrote that no “further disclosure” of case files “would be appropriate or warranted” because much was sealed by a court to protect Epstein’s victims, and “only a fraction of it “would have been aired publicly had Epstein gone to trial,” many of the president’s fervent supporters cried foul.
In response, the president has claimed the whole matter is a “hoax” made up by Democrats in multiple social media posts and public statements over the last few days.
