Trump Dodges Tricky Epstein Questions for Third Day

Donald Trump is avoiding questions about convicted sex trafficker Jeffrey Epstein for a third consecutive day, clearing his White House schedule of public engagements before escaping to Florida for the weekend.

Days after bombshell emails revealed the president may have known more about Epstein’s conduct than he has acknowledged, Trump—who is never shy of TV cameras—has refused to be grilled about the matter.

Trump and Epstein were once very good friends. Epstein died in 2019 while in jail on charges of sex trafficking minors. Davidoff Studios Photography/Getty Images

Instead, he has stuck to occasional social media tirades, including one on Friday morning, lashing out at “weak” Republicans who are demanding accountability over Epstein’s crimes and declaring that the sex predator is “a Democrat problem.”

“The Democrats are doing everything in their withering power to push the Epstein Hoax again, despite the DOJ releasing 50,000 pages of documents, in order to deflect from all of their bad policies and losses, especially the SHUTDOWN EMBARRASSMENT, where their party is in total disarray, and has no idea what to do,” he wrote.

“Some Weak Republicans have fallen into their clutches because they are soft and foolish. Epstein was a Democrat, and he is the Democrat’s problem, not the Republican’s problem!”

The strategy is emblematic of the frustration within the White House that the firestorm over Epstein has resurfaced this week, at a time when Trump was hoping to take a victory lap over the government shutdown finally ending.

Instead, insiders admit they are bracing for impact next week, when a significant number of Republicans are set to break ranks with Trump to support a bipartisan bill calling for the Justice Department to release the Epstein files.

In a bid to thwart the bill, Attorney General Pam Bondi, her deputy Todd Blanche and FBI director Kash Patel even held a meeting in the situation room with GOP Congresswoman Lauren Boebert, who is one of several Republicans expected to side with Democrats.

Todd Blanche, Donald Trump, and Pam Bondi. — U.S. President Donald Trump, joined by U.S. Attorney General Pam Bondi and Deputy Attorney General Todd Blanche. Joe Raedle/Getty Images

Trump’s event-free schedule on Friday comes after explosive emails released on Wednesday revealed that Epstein mentioned Trump by name multiple times in private correspondence over the last 15 years.

One email claimed Trump “spent hours” at Epstein’s house with one of his victims, who has since been identified as the late Virginia Giuffre.

In another, Epstein explicitly stated Trump “knew about the girls as he asked Ghislaine to stop”—a reference to Epstein’s accomplice, Ghislaine Maxwell, who recruited victims as part of his sex trafficking operation.

And another involves Epstein telling an associate that he was at Trump Tower five days after Trump’s 2016 election, undercutting the president’s longstanding claim that he stopped talking to Epstein in the mid-2000s.

The White House insists the emails “prove nothing, however, the publicity-loving president has kept a low profile since they were released.

He avoided questions on Wednesday night at an Oval Office signing ceremony officially ending the government shutdown.

He did the same on Thursday as well, after appearing alongside the First Lady to sign an executive order giving young people vital new resources to help them transition out of the foster care system.

After signing the order and posing for photos, Trump and his wife quickly left the room, ignoring journalists as they shouted questions about Epstein and his victims.

Prince Andrew with Virginia Roberts Giuffre and Ghislaine Maxwell. — Virginia Roberts Giuffre/Fair Use

Among those victims was Giuffre, who, like some of the people at Trump’s White House event, had spent years moving out of foster care homes as a child.

She met Epstein through Maxwell, thinking they were “nice people” who could help her get her life back on track.

But as Giuffre told the BBC in 2019, she soon found herself being abused by the pair and “passed around like a platter of fruit” among Epstein’s high-profile friends, including the now ex-prince Andrew.

The post Trump Dodges Tricky Epstein Questions for Third Day appeared first on The Daily Beast.

Trump Dodges Tricky Epstein Questions for Third Day

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