What a difference a year makes for President Donald Trump and the so-called Jeffrey Epstein files.
Last September, during the 2024 presidential campaign, Trump told podcaster Lex Fridman that he’d have “no problem” releasing official files related to the disgraced financier and convicted sex trafficker, including his so-called “client list.”
Now, Trump seems to have changed his tune about the files and whether they should be released at all, trying to raise doubts about the case on Wednesday in the Oval Office.
A reporter asked the president if the DOJ was trying to protect his friends and donors. The question came following a convergence of Epstein-related events this week: The House Oversight Committee on Tuesday publicly posted the Epstein materials it had received from the Department of Justice, and on Wednesday, a group of Epstein victims held a press conference outside the U.S. Capitol.
Trump then declared the whole situation around the release of the Epstein files (which, again, he made a campaign promise in 2024) was just “a Democrat hoax that never ends.”
