President Donald Trump on Wednesday continued to lash out at some of his most fervent supporters amid continuing calls for the justice department (DOJ) to release case files on multimillionaire sex trafficker Jeffrey Epstein, telling reporters in the Oval Office that those in his party who are refusing to drop the matter are “stupid” and “foolish.”
The comments to reporters came just about two hours after he posted a screed on his Truth Social platform ripping into what he called his “PAST supporters” for continuing to press for the release of the Epstein DOJ files in full.
Speaking alongside Bahraini crown prince and prime minister Salman bin Hamad al-Khalifa during a media availability at the top of a bilateral meeting, Trump was asked if he has evidence to support his recent claim that the fervor over the late disgraced financier, who died from suicide in a Manhattan jail cell during his first term, is part of a Democratic “hoax” against him.
He declined to say there is any such evidence, but he repeated his dubious claim that there’s nothing to the Epstein matter and accused those in his camp who still want to see documents from the case of having been taken in by duplicitous Democrats.
“I know it’s a hoax. It was started by Democrats. It’s been run by the Democrats for four years ... it’s perpetrated by the Democrats and some stupid Republicans and foolish Republicans fall into the net, and so they try and do the Democrats’ work,” he said.
The case of Epstein, a former math teacher turned financier who was arrested for alleged sex trafficking by federal authorities in 2019, has been a longtime fixation for many of Trump’s Maga supporters who believe they contain damaging information on prominent Democrats and other liberal celebrities.
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 has 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 last week, the DOJ and FBI issued a memo stating that there was no such client list and announcing that no additional files relating to the case would be made public.
The agencies had determined that no “further disclosure would be appropriate or warranted,” 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.”
Additionally, the memo said that no further charges were expected as investigators “did not uncover evidence that could predicate an investigation against uncharged third parties.”
The president was once closely associated with and spoke highly of the disgraced financier and his proclivity for surrounding himself with young women, while Epstein at one point described himself as Trump’s “best friend,” leading to speculation that the president has been trying to prevent release of the files despite a campaign promise to do so because their content would reflect poorly on him.
Earlier in the day, he took to Truth Social to attack his own supporters for their continued clamor for transparency around the notorious case, falsely alleging that the dust-up is a creation of his political enemies rather than anything genuinely felt by his political base. He also suggested that anyone still clamoring for the documents is not a true supporter of his.
“Their new SCAM is what we will forever call the Jeffrey Epstein Hoax, and my PAST supporters have bought into this ‘bullshit,’ hook, line, and sinker,” a clearly agitated Trump wrote. “They haven’t learned their lesson, and probably never will, even after being conned by the Lunatic Left for 8 long years.”
He went on to disavow those supporters who still want his administration to come clean on the case files assembled as federal investigators and prosecutors built a case against Epstein for sex trafficking during his first term, writing: “Let these weaklings continue forward and do the Democrats work, don’t even think about talking of our incredible and unprecedented success, because I don’t want their support anymore!”
Asked whether he was sincerely rejecting the support of anyone unwilling to accept the DOJ’s word on the Epstein case, he said he’d “lost a lot of faith in certain people” and accused them of having been “duped by the Democrats.”
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