Journalism of Courage
US President Donald Trump was an FBI informant on Jeffrey Epstein, according to Mike Johnson, the Republican Party’s leader in the House of Representatives. He made the allegation on CNN after being asked about Trump’s insistence that the Epstein scandal was a “Democrat-invented hoax”.
“What Trump is referring to is the hoax that the Democrats are using to try to attack him,” Johnson said. “I’ve talked to him about this many times, many times. He is horrified. It’s been misrepresented. He’s not saying that what Epstein did is a hoax. It’s a terrible, unspeakable evil. He believes that himself.”
Johnson added: “When he first heard the rumour, he kicked him out of Mar-a-Lago. He was an FBI informant to try to take this stuff down.”
Trump had once been friends with Epstein but said he cut ties after the financier poached staff from Mar-a-Lago. In recent months, he has repeatedly branded the scandal a hoax.
Johnson’s remarks follow months of speculation about a possible “client list,” which Attorney General Pam Bondi said in February was already on her desk. The Wall Street Journal later reported that Bondi had told Trump his name appeared multiple times on the list, which is believed to contain the identities of prominent figures linked to the sex offender.
Back in 2019, Trump called for a full investigation into Epstein’s death, later telling Tucker Carlson in 2023 it was possible Epstein had been murdered.
“From what I understand, I could check, but from what I understand, thousands of pages of documents have been given. But it’s really a Democrat hoax because they’re trying to get people to talk about something that’s totally irrelevant to the success that we’ve had as a nation since I’ve been president,” Trump said last week.
On Wednesday, Epstein’s victims and their families held a press conference backing the discharge petition, ramping up pressure on the White House. At the same time, the Justice Department maintained it has found no evidence of any client list tied to the disgraced financier.
