Trump's team promised transparency on Epstein. Here's what they delivered.
Since Trump took office, Trump administration officials have propelled that campaign forward, suggesting new names from Epstein's purported client list and new accountability were in store.
"Absolutely," Alina Habba said when asked by British journalist Piers Morgan in February if "we are likely to see criminal actions being taken" in relation to Epstein. Habba was serving as counselor to the president and is now the acting U.S. attorney for New Jersey. "To hide lists, to protect political friends, all of that, we don't have time for that."
"It's a new day, it's a new administration, and everything's going to come out to the public," Attorney General Pam Bondi told Fox News host Sean Hannity in a March interview.
Many who were eagerly awaiting the administration's next steps are now stewing in disappointment at what the Trump administration has delivered. In a July memo, the Justice Department and FBI said their "systematic review" of documents related to Epstein "revealed no incriminating 'client list.'"
"(W)hile we have labored to provide the public with maximum information regarding Epstein ... no further disclosure would be appropriate or warranted," the offices said.
After his team made such concrete promises, the report this week was tough for many Trump loyalists to swallow. Some of the president's most ardent supporters were in uproar.
"I'm going to go throw up actually," said right-wing radio show host Alex Jones in a July 7 video post on X, as tears welled up in his eyes.
"Shut down the FBI," former Trump spokeswoman Liz Harrington posted on X July 8.
"No one believes there is not a client list," Republican Congresswoman Marjorie Taylor Greene said in a July 8 post on X.
The outrage comes after years of claims from Trump's inner circle that the government has been hiding information on Epstein's possible associates and the circumstances of his death.
More: Epstein case fallout reaches fevered pitch with reports FBI's Dan Bongino could resign
While conspiracy theories have mounted online that a political elite had Epstein killed so he couldn't reveal the identities of others involved in his alleged sex-trafficking crimes, New York's chief medical examiner ruled in 2019 that Epstein died by suicide. The Justice Department memo this week echoes that finding.
That hasn't stopped some right-wing commentators from speculating that the administration is perpetuating a cover-up.
"Why is Pam Bondi's Justice Department covering up Jeffrey Epstein's crimes and murder?" right-wing political commentator Tucker Carlson posted on X July 8.
USA TODAY combed through years of public statements that may shed light on why so many Trump supporters are angry. Trump allies and top-ranking members of his administration have long promoted theories that there was more to the Epstein story and that Trump, if re-elected, would reveal the full picture.
Here's a timeline of what they've said:
"Remember when we learned that our wealthiest and most powerful people were connected to a guy who ran a literal child sex trafficking ring? And then that guy died mysteriously in a jail? And now we just don't talk about it," the future vice president posted on X on June 4, 2021, a few weeks before announcing his bid for a U.S. Senate seat in Ohio.
"What possible interest would the US government have in keeping Epstein's clients secret? Oh…" Vance said in a post on X on Dec. 30, 2021. Vance pointed in his post to a right-wing activist's claim that Biden's Justice Department made a deal to keep a "little black book" of Epstein associate and convicted sex trafficker Ghislaine Maxwell's contacts secret.
"There are a lot of people who are knee-deep in the Washington swamp who are not telling you the truth about serious allegations out there that Epstein may have had video and audio of people out there doing things they shouldn't have been doing," said Bongino, who was speaking on the "The Dan Bongino Show" on May 1, 2023. The future deputy director of the FBI said at the time, "Jeffrey Epstein isn't with us anymore and nobody seems to want to talk about it outside of a few entrepreneurial media outlets saying, 'Hey, this is a big deal.'"
Kash Patel, who would become Trump's FBI director, told right-wing media personality Glenn Beck on Dec. 13, 2023, that the head of the FBI under Biden had direct control of Epstein's "black book." "That's why you don't have the black book," Patel added. "And, to me, that's a thing I think President Trump should run on. On Day 1, roll out the 'black book.'"
"It's the same thing with Epstein's list. It's like, what the hell are these Republicans doing?" Patel said to right-wing media personality Benny Johnson on Dec. 19, 2023, a few months after his "Government Gangsters" book on an alleged anti-Trump "deep state" was published. He said, "I don't care about the (Epstein) list itself, but release the names, right? What the hell are the House Republicans doing? They have the majority. You can't get the list?" He also said, "Put on your big boy pants and let us know who the pedophiles are. We have an election coming up, and we need to adjudicate this matter at the polls." And he went on to say, "God knows the FBI and DOJ aren't going to do anything, but how are you going to reward the FBI with the new headquarters building ... and we can't even get basic documents out? This is why America hates Congress, and this is why I'm tired of the Republican majority saying they're going to get the job done and failing."
Robert F. Kennedy Jr. told Fox News' Jesse Watters on Dec. 5, 2023, during his 2024 presidential election campaign: "We should get real answers on what happened to Jeffrey Epstein and any of the high-level political people that he was involved with. All of that should be open to the public. It should be absolutely transparent." RFK Jr. now serves as Trump's secretary for the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services. He also told Watters, "I don't see why any of those records would have any redactions in them. Why would we be hiding that from the American public? I think that's outrageous."
"Yeah, yeah, I would (declassify the Epstein files)," Trump said on Fox & Friends Weekend on June 3, 2024. "I think that less so because, you know, you don't know if, you don't want to affect people's lives if it's phony stuff in there, cause there's a lot of phony stuff with that whole world. But I think I would." He also said, "Certainly about the way he (Epstein) died, it would be interesting to find out what happened there because that was a weird situation and the cameras didn't happen to be working, etcetera, etcetera. But yeah, I'd go a long way toward that one."
"How is it that my father can be convicted of 34 crimes, but no one on Epstein's list has even been brought to light?" Donald Trump Jr. said at a Turning Point Action convention on June 17, 2024, as he was campaigning on behalf of his father. "It's almost like they're trying to protect those pedophiles for some reason. I can't imagine why. We're not allowed to say they're groomers, but when they act a lot like groomers (it) sort of tells you everything you need to know, right?"
"A lot of big people went to that island. But fortunately, I was not one of them," former President Donald Trump said on podcaster Lex Fridman's show on Sept. 3, 2024. Trump added that the list of Epstein's clients who went to that island "probably will be" made public. "I'd certainly take a look at it."
"Seriously, we need to release the Epstein list, Vance, then a U.S. Senator and Trump's vice presidential pick, said on Oct. 22, 2024, on podcaster Theo Von's show. "That, that is an important thing."
Asked whether the Justice Department might release the list of Jeffrey Epstein's clients, Attorney General Pam Bondi told Fox News host John Roberts Feb. 21, 2025, "It's sitting on my desk right now to review. That's been a directive by President Trump. I'm reviewing that." When asked if she had seen anything yet that caused her to say, "Oh my gosh," Bondi said, "Not yet." (At a July 8, 2025 Trump cabinet meeting, Bondi said of her remarks to Roberts: "I was asked a question about the client list and my response was, 'It's sitting on my desk to be reviewed,' meaning the file," not the client list.)
Bondi told Fox News host Jesse Watters on Feb. 26, 2025, "I think tomorrow, Jesse, breaking news right now, you're going to see some Epstein information being released by my office." She said, "What you're going to see, hopefully tomorrow, is a lot of flight logs, a lot of names, a lot of information."
Asked about Bondi's promise to release the Jeffrey Epstein files, then-counselor to the president Alina Habba said, "We are going to be promises made, promises kept," in comments on Piers Morgan's show on Feb. 27, 2025. "In this case, in Epstein's case, it is incredibly disturbing. We have flight logs, we have information, names that will come out." Habba, who is now the acting U.S. attorney for New Jersey, also said, "I won't say they're guilty until they go through their time in court, but again, now it's time for accountability."
When Piers Morgan said no man associated with Epstein has been put in prison and asked whether "we are likely to see criminal actions being taken," Habba responded, "Absolutely. I think it would be negligent for us not to." Habba added that, "You have to hold individuals who are indeed rapists accountable. We have to have them tried." She said, "To hide lists, to protect political friends, all of that, we don't have time for that."
The Justice Department released documents on Feb. 27, 2025, that it said had previously been leaked, but were never formally released by the government. The department called the move the "First Phase" of declassifying Epstein files. It said that "thousands of pages" of never-before-disclosed documents had been left out when Bondi previously requested all the files. The FBI was being ordered to deliver the remaining documents swiftly. "The Department remains committed to transparency and intends to release the remaining documents upon review and redaction to protect the identities of Epstein's victims," according to the press release.
Bondi told Fox News host Sean Hannity on Mar. 3, 2025, that an order she issued in February resulted in a "truckload" of Epstein files being delivered by the FBI. "Thousands of pages of documents. I have the FBI going through them," Bondi said. "We believe in transparency, and America has the right to know."
"Sadly, these people (the Biden administration) don't believe in transparency. But I think, more unfortunately, I think a lot of them don't believe in honesty. And it's a new day, it's a new administration, and everything's going to come out to the public," Bondi told Hannity."It's really, it's not sad, it's infuriating that these people thought that they could sit on this information, but they can't. It's a new day, and we believe in transparency, and it's going to come out."
On July 7, the Justice Department, which Bondi leads as attorney general, released a memo stating that a "systematic review revealed no incriminating 'client list'" and that Jeffrey Epstein died by suicide. "Perpetuating unfounded theories about Epstein serves neither" to combat child exploitation nor bring justice to victims, according to the memo. "No further disclosure would be appropriate or warranted," it said.
After the years of statements from Trump and his circle indicating there were hidden associates of Epstein and the new administration would be naming them, Trump expressed bewilderment on July 8 when a reporter asked Bondi at a cabinet meeting about lingering mysteries in the wake of the Justice Department's Epstein memo. "Are people still talking about this guy, this creep?" the president asked. "That is unbelievable."
(This story has been updated to correct a spelling error.)
This article originally appeared on USA TODAY: Timeline of Trump officials' promises about Epstein files
Hashtags
Try Our AI Features
Explore what Daily8 AI can do for you:
Comments
No comments yet...
Related Articles
CNBC
25 minutes ago
- CNBC
New Senate report on Trump assassination attempt calls for more severe disciplinary action
A new Senate report on the attempted assassination of President Donald Trump at a campaign rally in Butler, Pennsylvania, last summer has revealed "multiple, unacceptable failures" in the U.S. Secret Service's planning and response, and called for more severe disciplinary action. Trump, then a presidential candidate, was grazed by a bullet during the rally as 20-year-old gunman Thomas Crooks fired eight shots. One attendee, Corey Comperatore, was killed, and two others were injured. A sniper subsequently killed the gunman, but the attack prompted questions about how Crooks was able to avoid detection by the country's top protective agency for nearly 45 minutes. "What happened was inexcusable and the consequences imposed for the failures so far do not reflect the severity of the situation," stated the report released Sunday by the Homeland Security and Governmental Affairs Committee, chaired by Sen. Rand Paul, R-Ky. Last December, a House task force investigating the incident made nearly a dozen recommendations for the Secret Service in a 180-page report that determined the shooting was "preventable." The latest report details a series of breakdowns that reveal "a disturbing pattern of communication failure and negligence that culminated in a preventable tragedy." It said the USSS became aware of a suspicious individual "nearly 45 minutes before shots were fired, and failed to act." Despite advance knowledge of line-of-sight vulnerabilities at the venue, officials did not address them, the report said, adding the agency assigned an inexperienced operator to oversee counter-unmanned aerial systems and that USSS headquarters "denied or left-unfulfilled at least 10 requests" by the Donald Trump Division for additional resources, including countersniper personnel. Last July, six Secret Service employees were suspended without pay, an agency official told NBC News last week. The suspensions ranged from 10 to 42 days without pay. It is unclear when the agents were formally suspended. Less than two weeks after the incident, Kimberly Cheatle stepped down as director of the Secret Service amid bipartisan calls for her resignation. At the time, she said she took "full responsibility for the security lapse." But the report also criticized the agency for "insufficient accountability" following the attack. "Not a single person has been fired," it said. "The Committee believes more than six individuals should have received disciplinary action as a result of their action (or inaction) on July 13, 2024. Those who were disciplined received penalties far too weak to match the severity of the failures." Investigators also found that the Secret Service "denied or left unfulfilled" multiple requests for additional staff, assets and resources to protect Trump. "This was not a single error. It was a cascade of preventable failures that nearly cost President Trump his life," it said. "The American people deserve better." On Saturday, Senate Judiciary Committee Chairman Chuck Grassley, R-Iowa, released a separate Government Accountability Office report saying the USSS "failed to implement security measures that could have prevented the assassination attempt." "Prior to the July 13 rally, senior-level Secret Service officials became aware of a threat to then-former President Trump," the GAO report said. "This information was not specific to the July 13 rally or gunman. Nonetheless, due to the Secret Service's siloed practice for sharing classified threat information, Secret Service and local law enforcement personnel central to developing site security plans for the rally were unaware of the threat." In an interview with ABC News before she resigned, Cheatle said there was a "short period" of time between when the gunman was initially flagged as suspicious and when he began shooting. December's House investigation praised the response of the Secret Service to the second assassination attempt on Trump in September in West Palm Beach, Florida, crediting it for demonstrating "how properly executed protective measures can foil an attempted assassination."
Gizmodo
30 minutes ago
- Gizmodo
Trump Tries to Bury Epstein Scandal, but Elon Musk Won't Let Him
Elon Musk seems convinced he's finally found Donald Trump's Achilles' heel, the one issue that could fracture the unshakable loyalty of the Make America Great Again (MAGA) movement: the infamous Epstein files and their handling by the Trump administration. For years, the unsealing of Jeffrey Epstein's records has been a holy grail for many on the right. The belief, fanned by influencers now in seats of power, was that the files contained a secret 'client list' that would expose widespread corruption and depravity among powerful Democrats and 'deep state' figures. It was seen as the ultimate political weapon. FBI Director Kash Patel, in his former life as a right-wing media personality, told Glenn Beck in 2023 that Trump should 'on Day 1, roll out the 'black book'.' This long-held anticipation is what made the administration's recent announcement so explosive. On July 7, the Department of Justice and the FBI released a joint memo concluding their review found no mythical client list and no new information that could lead to charges. The long-awaited bombshell was a dud, and the fallout has been swift, creating deep fissures within the administration itself. According to multiple reports, a major fracture has emerged between the leadership of the DOJ and the FBI over the handling of the case files. The infighting boiled over when conservative commentator Dan Bongino, now the Deputy Director of the FBI, reportedly criticized Attorney General Pam Bondi's handling of the review in a White House meeting. Reports from Fox News and other outlets suggest Bongino distanced himself from the findings and is considering resigning in protest. Amid the chaos, FBI Director Kash Patel posted a carefully worded statement on X. 'The conspiracy theories just aren't true, never have been,' Patel wrote on July 12, without clarifying if he was denying reports about the feud or a potential Bongino resignation. 'It's an honor to serve the President of the United States @realDonaldTrump — and I'll continue to do so for as long as he calls on me.' The conspiracy theories just aren't true, never have been. It's an honor to serve the President of the United States @realDonaldTrump — and I'll continue to do so for as long as he calls on me. — Kash Patel (@Kash_Patel) July 12, 2025This internal revolt prompted President Trump to intervene. In a lengthy message on Truth Social, he attempted to shut down the controversy by framing the entire Epstein affair as a conspiracy orchestrated by his political enemies. 'They created the Epstein Files, just like they created the FAKE Hillary Clinton/Christopher Steele Dossier,' Trump wrote, urging his allies to stop 'playing right into their hands.' He ordered his team to refocus on his own political grievances and to 'not waste Time and Energy on Jeffrey Epstein, somebody that nobody cares about.' 'LET PAM BONDI DO HER JOB — SHE'S GREAT!' the president concluded. But where Trump saw a political inconvenience, Elon Musk, the CEO of Tesla and founder of SpaceX, saw a profound moral failure. In a direct reply on X, Musk ignored Trump's entire political narrative. Instead, he zeroed in on the core injustice of the scandal, amplifying the outrage that Trump sought to extinguish. 'This is a very big deal,' Musk posted to his hundreds of millions of followers. 'What the hell kind of system are we living in if thousands of kids were abused, the government has videos of the abusers and yet none of the abusers are even facing charges!?' This is a very big deal. What the hell kind of system are we living in if thousands of kids were abused, the government has videos of the abusers and yet none of the abusers are even facing charges!? — Elon Musk (@elonmusk) July 13, 2025The rebuke was immediate and powerful. While Trump tried to control his political universe, Musk used his immense platform to declare that justice for abused children was more important than political games. The split highlights a fundamental difference between the two men: Trump views the world through the lens of political power, while Musk, in this instance, has positioned himself as a champion for basic justice. This public disagreement marks one of the most significant moments of dissent from within Trump's orbit and appears to be the latest flashpoint in a rapidly escalating political divorce. Their once-tight alliance, which saw Musk lead a government efficiency task force (DOGE), has fractured in recent weeks over fundamental disagreements on policy. The rift burst into public view over Trump's 'One Big Beautiful Bill,' a sweeping tax and spending package that Musk lambasted as a 'disgusting abomination.' I'm sorry, but I just can't stand it anymore. This massive, outrageous, pork-filled Congressional spending bill is a disgusting abomination. Shame on those who voted for it: you know you did wrong. You know it. — Elon Musk (@elonmusk) June 3, 2025That policy disagreement quickly morphed into a direct political challenge. In early July, Musk announced the formation of 'America Party,' a third-party movement aimed at challenging the political establishment. The move was a clear signal that Musk was no longer content to be a Trump ally. While their previous fights were over fiscal policy and political strategy, this latest clash over Jeffrey Epstein is different. By refusing to let the Epstein story be swept under the rug, Musk is using his platform to force a conversation that Trump desperately wants to end, proving he is one of the few figures on the right willing and able to defy the president so directly.
Yahoo
30 minutes ago
- Yahoo
Opinion: How the Trump tax cut law will hurt the working class
Republican Sen. Lisa Murkowski of Alaska said it was 'agonizing' to vote for the tax cut bill President Trump signed on July 4. As details of the legislation come into focus, it's obvious why it might cause heartburn even for Republicans who passed it, with no Democratic votes. The One Big Beautiful Bill Act, as the law is clumsily known, will literally make the rich better off and the poor worse off. Some conservatives who want to pare the 'welfare state' may not care. But imposing austerity on millions of working-class voters is a stunning political risk for a party that is supposedly following President Trump's populist instincts. The law has two main elements. The first is a sweeping series of tax cuts and tax cut extensions that will generally benefit everybody but add trillions of dollars to the national debt. The second is a set of benefit cuts that are meant to reduce the overall cost of the bill. Those will hit working-class Americans and make the net effect of the bill punishing to them. The biggest part of the OBBBA is an extension of the tax cuts Trump signed into law in 2017. Those were due to expire at the end of this year. The OBBBA makes the current individual income tax rates permanent. Those are not 'tax cuts' per se, since tax rates will be the same in future years as they are in 2025. But the law does prevent what would have been a de facto tax hike if the 2017 rates expired and the higher 2016 rates went back into effect. The law also includes some new tax breaks, such as the elimination of tax on income from tips and overtime pay, up to certain limits. There's also a new tax break for some seniors and a much higher cap for deducting state and local taxes, which will mostly benefit wealthy homeowners who itemize deductions on their tax returns. The tax provisions generally benefit everybody, but the wealthy will gain the most. The average savings for all taxpayers will be about $2,900, compared with what the tax bill would have been if current rates expired, according to the Tax Policy Center. Those with incomes above $1 million would save nearly $60,000 on average. But the savings for workers with incomes below $30,000 would be less than $200 per year. Those provisions, at least, do no harm to most taxpayers. But the harm arrives when factoring in cuts to Medicaid, subsidies for people to buy health insurance through the Affordable Care Act, and food aid known as SNAP. The healthcare cutbacks will leave an additional 16 million people without coverage by 2034, according to the Congressional Budget Office. Cutbacks to the SNAP program could reduce or eliminate food aid going to 22 million families, according to the Urban Institute. Those changes will leave millions of Americans worse off. When accounting for the tax changes and benefit cuts combined, people in the lowest income quintile, with incomes below $13,500, will lose an average of $600 per year, according to the Yale Budget Lab. The next quintile will lose $65 per year. The healthcare and food aid cuts will have little impact on top earners, for obvious reasons. The top quintile will gain $6,500 in after-tax savings from all of the law's provisions, while the top 1% will net more than $30,000. This is what economists call a 'regressive' policy change because the economic burden falls more heavily on those with lower incomes. 'The bill has four overriding characteristics,' Howard Gleckman of the Tax Policy Center wrote recently. 'It is regressive, expensive, complicated, and it treats people who make roughly the same amount of money in very different ways.'Tax cut defenders often point out that the wealthy typically get the biggest tax cuts because they pay the most taxes in the first place. That's generally true. But the wealthy are a distinct minority, which means a regressive law such as the OBBBA dis-serves millions of voters, and possibly a majority of them. The bottom two income quintiles, for instance, include roughly 92 million taxpaying units, whether singles, married couples, or other designations. There are only 26 million taxpaying units in the top quintile. Maybe that's what Murkowski found so agonizing. 'Do I like this bill? No,' she told a reporter on July 2. 'I know in many parts of the country there are Americans that are not going to be advantaged by this bill.' Trump can point to working-class provisions such as the elimination of taxes on tip income and overtime pay, with limitations based on the type of work and the amount of income. Some workers will in fact benefit from those carve-outs. But tax analysts argue that favoring certain types of work in that manner violates the principle of 'horizontal equity,' the idea that similar incomes should be taxed in similar ways. To use the example of a restaurant, a waiter earning tip income would get a tax break that a cook paid hourly would not. That distorts the tax code, creates incentives to cheat, and generates legitimate grievances among the unlucky workers not gifted a tax break. The OBBBA is already unpopular, with 64% of Americans disapproving and just 35% approving, in one poll. The real vote will come in the 2026 midterm elections, when Americans will express whether they feel better off or worse off under unified Republican control of government. Getting Americans to like this law might be a more agonizing ideal than passing it. Rick Newman is a senior columnist for Yahoo Finance. Follow him on Bluesky and X: @rickjnewman. Click here for political news related to business and money policies that will shape tomorrow's stock prices.
