Roughly a week ago, during a White House Cabinet meeting, a reporter pressed Attorney General Pam Bondi about a controversial DOJ memo on Jeffrey Epstein released the day before.
“Your memo left some lingering mysteries,” the reporter said.
Before Bondi could respond, President Donald Trump cut in, visibly irritated. “Are people still talking about this guy, this creep?” he snapped, brushing off the question and suggesting the reporter was wasting time by focusing on Epstein when, in Trump’s view, there were more pressing matters.
If the goal was to squash the discussion, the effort backfired.
In fact, it was Trump’s own MAGA base that kept the controversy alive, continuing to raise questions about the DOJ’s findings and accusing the administration of hiding information. By Saturday, Trump tried a new tactic—damage control.
In a nearly 400-word post on his social media platform, the former president doubled down in support of Bondi, declared his administration “PERFECT,” and lashed out at some of his own supporters for obsessing over Epstein. “Selfish people,” he called them, adding dismissively, “Nobody cares about Epstein,” despite ample evidence to the contrary.
Trump’s post didn’t stop there.
He veered into conspiracy territory, blaming “Radical Left inspired Documents on Jeffrey Epstein” and suggesting the entire controversy had been cooked up by Barack Obama, Hillary Clinton, former FBI Director James Comey, and former CIA Director John Brennan—all of whom left government years before Epstein was arrested—by Trump’s own DOJ—in 2019.
How these former officials could have authored “Epstein files” while out of office remains unexplained, as Trump offered no details. The logic simply doesn’t hold up—but that didn’t stop him from repeating the claim.
In the process, Trump seemed to contradict his administration’s shifting narrative about the Epstein records. What began as (1) “the Epstein files are real and explosive,” later turned into (2) “the Epstein files don’t exist,” and has now evolved into (3) “the Epstein files do exist, but they’re fake and written by political enemies.”
In trying to put the issue to rest, Trump may have only added fuel to the fire. If the White House hoped this latest pivot would end the speculation, it might want to brace for more backlash instead.
