BREAKING NEWS Trump won't appoint a special prosecutor for Epstein 'hoax' as Karoline Leavitt mocks renewed interest
It signals a shift in the president's thinking after he considered having his Attorney General Pam Bondi appoint one a day earlier following outrage from his MAGA base.
'The president would not recommend a special prosecutor in the Epstein case. That's how he feels,' White House press secretary Karoline Leavitt told the Daily Mail in the daily briefing.
Leavitt said the president was confident in the Justice Department's 'exhaustive' work on the case.
'The Attorney General and the FBI, led by Pam Bondi, Dan Bongino, Kash Patel. These are great patriots. Some of the most trusted voices in the Republican party movement,' she said. 'It's part of the reason the president appointed them to these high law enforcement positions.'
Leavitt said Trump also supported the release of any new details in the case if necessary.
'The president has said if the Attorney General and Department of Justice and the FBI have more credible evidence in regards to Jeffrey Epstein's crimes, they should put that forward,' she said.
Leavitt further mocked Congressional Democrats for demonstrating newfound interest in the case, accusing them of doing so now for political reasons.
'They had control of the White House for four years, and they didn't do a dang thing when it came to transparency in regards to Jeffrey Epstein and his heinous crimes,' she said.
During an interview with JustTheNews.com on Wednesday, Trump seemed open to appointing a prosecutor to look into Epstein and other conspiracies.
When he was asked about his support of a special prosecutor reviewing the 'weaponization' of the DOJ against conservatives in the 2016 election, Trump said he did and that a special prosecutor could look into the Epstein files as well.
'I think they could look at all of it. It's all the same scam. They could look at this Jeffrey Epstein hoax also, because that's the same stuff that's all put out by Democrats,' Trump said when asked what he'd most like to see the FBI investigate.
Trump expressed concerns that former intelligence and law enforcement officials could have tampered with evidence surrounding Epstein case.
'I can imagine what they put into files, just like they did with the others. I mean, the Steele dossier was a total fake, right? It took two years to figure that out,' he said, referring to former FBI directors James Comey and Christopher Wray.
He described the case as a 'hoax' and lamented that Republicans were still hung up on the case despite an effort by the Attorney General Pam Bondi and the Department of Justice to put the controversial case behind them.
'But they ought to look into the Jeffrey Epstein hoax too, because that's another hoax that's frankly, put out by the Democrats pushing, pushing the Republicans, and put out by the Democrats,' he added.
The president and his administration face ongoing controversy after the Justice Department announced in a memo that there was no evidence to support the conspiracy theory that Epstein was murdered in prison and that he did not have a client 'list' that they could release.
The news sparked outrage from the president's followers who anticipated the eventual release of the files after Trump promised during his presidential campaign to release them.
Congressional Democrats jumped on the case, further exploiting the disappointment from Trump's base, even suggesting the president was tied up with the Epstein case and covering it up.
Trump said Wednesday in the Oval Office he was discouraged by many of his supporters clinging to the case.
'I've lost a lot of faith in certain people, yeah, I've lost. Because they got duped by the Democrats,' he told reporters.
On Wednesday, Trump also berated his followers on social media for their focus on the 'Epstein scam' he said was perpetrated by Democrats.
'Their new SCAM is what we will forever call the Jeffrey Epstein Hoax, and my PAST supporters have bought into this 'bullshit,' hook, line, and sinker. They haven't learned their lesson, and probably never will, even after being conned by the Lunatic Left for 8 long years,' he wrote.
He criticized Republicans and his MAGA supporters for not focusing on his successes and distracting the public with the case.
'Let these weaklings continue forward and do the Democrats' work, don't even think about talking of our incredible and unprecedented success, because I don't want their support anymore!' he added.
On Tuesday, Trump tried to dismiss the case as 'boring' and said he did not understand why the case was so important to his supporters.
'He's dead for a long time,' Trump said of the disgraced financier. 'He was never a big factor in terms of life. I don't understand why the Jeffrey Epstein case would be of interest to anybody.'
The president spoke about the issue that threatens to further plague his presidency after a trip to Pennsylvania on Air Force One.
'It's pretty boring stuff. It's sordid, but it's boring, and I don't understand why it keeps going,' he said to reporters on the tarmac at Joint Base Andrews.
Epstein's associate Ghislane Maxwell is currently serving a 20-year prison sentence in Florida after she was convicted in June 2022 for conspiring with her boss Epstein in the sexual exploitation of minors.
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It remains to be seen, however, whether the Justice Department will ask Maxwell to testify and whether new evidence will yield any prosecutions. MAGA supporters have been demanding that Trump be more transparent about the Epstein files after he campaigned on making all the information public. Legal experts, including Dershowitz, have cast doubt on the usefulness of grand jury transcripts, urging the DOJ instead to release FBI interview notes from Epstein's victims. Court filings previously revealed that some of Epstein's more than 1,000 identified victims were groomed to recruit others - a chilling tactic that created a web of silence and complicity that prosecutors have struggled to untangle since Epstein's death in 2019. Maxwell's reemergence comes at a critical moment. Earlier this year, the Justice Department and FBI raided Epstein's former properties, collecting what they described as 'voluminous materials.' But just weeks later, they released a joint memo dismissing long-running conspiracy theories, stating there was 'no incriminating client list' and no evidence of blackmail. That walk-back sparked outrage among Trump's base, especially after Attorney General Pam Bondi had previously promised to release 'a lot of names' and 'a lot of flight logs.' MAGA supporters were particularly enraged that no new material was produced in the Epstein files review and that Trump's DOJ found no existence of a so-called 'client list' of high profile co-conspirators. The president even started calling the whole ordeal the 'Epstein hoax' and claimed Democrats were to blame for stoking conspiracies in an effort to divide Republicans. Now, under pressure, the administration reversed course. 'President Trump has told us to release all credible evidence,' Blanche wrote on social media, before asking a federal court to unseal grand jury transcripts from both Epstein's and Maxwell's cases. The judges in charge - Richard Berman and Paul Engelmayer - have ordered the DOJ to submit its arguments by July 29, and have given Maxwell, a representative of Epstein's estate, and the victims until August 5 to file their responses. Speaking from the Oval Office on Tuesday, Trump said he supports the outreach. 'I think it would be something - sounds appropriate to do, yeah,' he told reporters. The president has called parts of the Epstein scandal a 'hoax,' and has publicly criticized his own supporters who have become fixated on the idea of a government cover-up. But he has also told Bondi and Blanche to pursue all legitimate evidence. Just last week, the DOJ opposed Maxwell's request to have the Supreme Court review her case, with her lawyers claiming she should have never been charged because of a 2008 plea deal the courts struck with Epstein. But Maxwell's team has now hinted she may be ready to cooperate now that most of her appeals have failed. Maxwell's journey from international socialite to inmate has been as dramatic as it is disturbing. Once a fixture of British high society and New York elite circles, she rubbed shoulders with royalty, billionaires, and political power players. After her father, media tycoon Robert Maxwell, died in 1991 under suspicious circumstances, Ghislaine found herself under the wing of Epstein - eventually becoming his confidante, girlfriend, and accomplice. In court, four women testified that Maxwell groomed them as teenagers for Epstein and, at times, participated in the abuse herself. She was convicted in 2021 on charges of sex trafficking, conspiracy, and transporting a minor for illegal sexual activity. She did not testify at her trial, but gave two depositions in earlier civil cases, in which she denied wrongdoing and accused Epstein's most vocal accusers of fabricating stories. Her brother, Ian Maxwell, who has publicly defended her since her 2020 arrest, claimed this week that the infamous 'client list' is a myth. 'I don't think it constitutes a list of alleged people to whom young minor girls were trafficked,' he told Piers Morgan Uncensored. 'Ghislaine's position has been: she doesn't believe such a list existed.' Ian also warned of the danger Maxwell faces behind bars. 'Prisons are very dangerous places,' he said. 'We know from Ghislaine that there are serious staff shortages and more dangerous higher-risk-category prisoners now being admitted.' Maxwell's legal team has long argued that she should never have been prosecuted, citing the 2007 non-prosecution agreement Epstein signed in Florida, which extended immunity to his co-conspirators. But federal prosecutors in New York successfully argued that the deal did not apply outside Florida, and moved forward with the case that ultimately led to her conviction.
