Another day, another headline about Jeffrey Epstein for the White House to contend with.
The Wall Street Journal has reported that US attorney general Pam Bondi met with President Trump in May to inform him that his name appears multiple times in files related to Jeffrey Epstein, who took his own life while awaiting trial on sex trafficking charges in 2019.
While the appearance of anyone’s name in the files would not in itself indicate wrongdoing, it adds fuel to the fire of those peddling a conspiracy of the president’s own making.
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During the election campaign, he implied the Biden administration was concealing something in the Epstein files and vowed to release them.
Once elected, his Department of Justice said it had reviewed the files and there was nothing to see.
In a clumsy attempt to shut down questions from their own base, they shifted the focus to the question of Donald Trump’s own relationship with Epstein.
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The two were friends in the nineties and noughties with Trump flying several times on Epstein’s plane according to flight records. Again, there is no indication of any wrongdoing.
Three times in two weeks though, the president has attempted to quell the media storm.
He did a U-turn and ordered the release of grand jury testimony related to Epstein. A judge has declined that request, ruling it doesn’t meet the bar.
He filed a lawsuit against Rupert Murdoch and the Wall Street Journal for a report alleging he had sent a suggestive birthday letter to Epstein, something Trump calls “fake news”.
And he gave his seal of approval to the justice department’s decision to meet with Epstein’s former girlfriend and accomplice, the jailed Ghislaine Maxwell.
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In a break from his usual all-hands-on-deck approach of having key figures promote and defend him, the president doesn’t want his administration talking about Epstein, according to NBC.
A senior administration source, speaking on condition of anonymity, told the network no one is allowed to speak about it without high-level vetting.
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“The communications office has to be directly involved in every aspect of this,” they said. “Every ‘i’ must be dotted and every ‘t’ must be crossed through us.
“The questions are going to come, but whether we engage or not is part of the consideration.”
