US Rep Lauren Boebert has been ridiculed online after she dismissed the trial of Ghislaine Maxwell as “misguided outrage”, and was bombarded with images of Jeffrey Epstein and Donald Trump.
Ms Boebert was accused by Twitter users of ignoring the fact that Mr Epstein, Ms Maxwell and the former US president were pictured together in the 80s and 90s.
And although Mr Trump has admitted to falling out with Mr Epstein long before his death in 2019, he has wished Ms Maxwell, the financier’s former associate, “well”.
Ms Maxwell has meanwhile pleaded not guilty to facilitating Mr Epstein’s abuse of minors and sex trafficking his victims, ahead of her trial on Monday.
Ms Boebert, the Colorado Republican, tweeted: “Tomorrow the Ghislaine Maxwell trial begins. Get ready for a higher-than-usual amount of leftist panic and misguided outrage.”
“Lol sure, Lauren,” tweeted one critic, with half a dozen images of Mr Epstein and Mr Trump together, and which featured Ms Maxwell.
“Will you be apologising to Ghislaine Maxwell too?” wrote another on Twitter, in apparent reference to Mr Trump wishing her well. “I’m just trying to understand the new rules”.
“I don’t care where you’re from, how you were raised, what your political party is, or where you get your news,” wrote Donald Valdez, a Democrat in Colorado’s House of Representatives. “Politicising the trial of an alleged child sex trafficker is sick, indecent, and wrong.”
The trial against Ms Maxwell, a former British socialite, is expected to last for six weeks and will see her rebuff allegations that she facilitated Mr Epstein’s abuse of underage girls in the 90s.
The convicted paedophile died in his prison cell in August 2019 awaiting trial on charges of sex trafficking.
The former US president, who reportedly fell out with Mr Epstein, told New York magazine in 2002 that the former American financier was “a lot of fun to be with” and that he had known him for “15 years”.
“It is even said that he likes beautiful women as much as I do, and many of them are on the younger side,” Mr Trump told the magazine.
Criticism of Ms Boebert comes after Fox News was accused of removing Mr Trump from an image of Ms Maxwell and Mr Epstein, following her arrest by the FBI last year The cable channel later apologised.
