Trump says FBI should investigate ‘the Jeffrey Epstein hoax’ as a criminal conspiracy against him
In an interview with Real America’s Voice, the far-right network created to host Steve Bannon’s podcast, Donald Trump said on Wednesday that the FBI should investigate what he called “the Jeffrey Epstein hoax” as part of a criminal conspiracy against him.
Trump made the comment after his host John Solomon, a partisan journalist who worked with Rudy Giuliani in 2019 to spread false rumors about Joe Biden’s anticorruption effort in Ukraine, said that he had confirmed that the FBI has opened an investigation into an alleged, decade-long criminal conspiracy to use the federal government against him.
Asked by Solomon what he thought the FBI should investigate, Trump brought up Epstein, saying that the furor over the Epstein files, along with allegations that his 2016 campaign had benefited from Russian interference, and special counsel Jack Smith’s attempt to prosecute him for attempting to overturn his 2020 election loss, were “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. “And you know some of the naive Republicans fall right into line.”
Trump went on to suggest that all of the files from the federal investigation into his late friend, the convicted sex offender Epstein, should not be released because they might include false information about him planted there by his Democratic rivals.
“All they have to do is put out anything credible,” Trump said, of the justice department’s decision not to release all of the Epstein files. “But, you know, that was run by the Biden administration for four years. I can imagine what they put into files,” Trump added.
He then suggested that files from the justice department’s investigation of the notorious sex trafficker and pedophile Epstein, who was arrested and died in jail in 2019 during Trump’s first term, were somehow as likely to be fake as allegations made against him in the Steele dossier.
Trump went on to suggest that the files on Epstein were of questionable veracity because they “were run by Chris Wray and they were run by Comey”, naming the two men who served as FBI director during his first term.
Key events
Closing summary
We will leave our live coverage of Donald Trump’s second stint in the Oval office here for the night, but will return on Thursday to keep you updated. In the meantime, here’s what happened today:
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In an interview with Real America’s Voice, the far-right network created to host Steve Bannon’s podcast, Donald Trump said that the FBI should investigate what he called “the Jeffrey Epstein hoax” as part of a criminal conspiracy against him.
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In a series of posts on his social media platform X, Elon Musk mocked Trump’s wild claim that files related to the federal investigation of Epstein, the late sex offender and longtime Trump friend, are “a hoax”.
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Trump told reporters that he was “surprised” when Jerome Powell, the chairperson of the Federal Reserve, was appointed by Joe Biden. But Powell was appointed by Trump himself in 2017, before being reappointed by Biden in 2022.
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Trump claimed that Epstein had “died three or four years ago”. But Epstein died in federal custody in 2019, when Trump was president, not during the Biden administration.
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The Daily Show’s Jordan Klepper explained that Trump’s claims of a conspiracy makes no sense. “According to Trump, all the top Democrats got together and said: ‘Let’s create some fake files that destroy Trump’s political career’. They don’t ever use them,” Klepper said. “They let Trump get elected. Don’t use them. Let Trump get elected again. Still don’t use them. And then, once he’s the president, hope he releases the files without ever looking at them.”
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In a lengthy Truth Social post Trump dismissed the backlash over the Epstein files as a “scam” perpetuated by Democrats and accused supporters who have called for more transparency of “doing the Democrats’ work” by buying into the “hoax”.
How Trump’s claim that the Jeffrey Epstein files are a hoax might make sense
It is not hard to see why people are confused by Donald Trump’s claim that the uproar over his justice department’s refusal to release files from the federal investigation that led to the arrest of Jeffrey Epstein in 2019 is “a hoax” devised by Democrats to harm him.
As the Daily Show’s Jordan Klepper explained on Tuesday night, the supposed plot makes no sense at all.
“According to Trump, all the top Democrats got together and said, ‘Let’s create some fake files that destroy Trump’s political career’. They don’t ever use them” Klepper said. “They let Trump get elected. Don’t use them. Let Trump get elected again. Still don’t use them. And then, once he’s the president, hope he releases the files without ever looking at them.”
That does seem to be the scheme Trump is trying to convince his supporters he is a victim of, which he compares to the unverified rumors about his behavior in Moscow during a Miss Universe pageant collected by the former British intelligence agent Christopher Steele.
But what makes Trump’s use of the phrase “Jeffrey Epstein hoax” deeply confusing is that, without any further explanation, he appears to be suggesting that the entire furore over Epstein’s crimes was somehow fabricated. That’s what prompted Elon Musk to ask on Wednesday why Epstein’s accomplice Ghislaine Maxwell “is in federal prison for a hoax”.
But what Trump seems to be getting at, without saying so explicitly, is that there are mentions of him in the Epstein files, which would make sense, given that Trump himself told New York magazine in 2002 that they had been friends for years and that he was aware that Epstein was attracted to young women. “I’ve known Jeff for 15 years. Terrific guy,” Trump said. “He’s a lot of fun to be with. It is even said that he likes beautiful women as much as I do, and many of them are on the younger side”.
But Trump appears to be arguing, without acknowledging that there are mentions of him in the files, that any such documents are fakes, planted there by his political enemies, making the whole affair, like all evidence that Russia did work to get him elected in 2016, and that he lost the 2020 election fair and square, “a Democrat hoax”.
Trump History: Biden appointed Powell, Epstein died four years ago and his uncle knew the Unabomber
In the past 24 hours, Donald Trump has rewritten history three times.
First, he said that he had discussed the Unabomber, Ted Kaczynski, with his late uncle, John Trump. “Kaczynski was one of his students,” Trump said at an AI and energy summit on Tuesday. “I said: ‘What kind of a student was he, Uncle John?’ Dr John Trump. I said: ‘What kind of a student?’ And then he said: ‘Seriously, good.’ He said, ‘He’d correct – he’d go around correcting everybody.’ But it didn’t work out too well for him”.
But John Trump died in 1985, 11 years before anyone knew the identity of the Unabomber. Trump’s uncle also taught electrical engineer at MIT, where there is no record of Kaczynski, a mathematician, ever having studied.
Then Trump told reporters in the Oval office on Wednesday that he was “surprised” when Jerome Powell, the chairperson of the Federal Reserve, was appointed by Joe Biden. But Powell was appointed by Trump himself in 2017, before being reappointed by Biden in 2022.
Finally, Trump told reporters on Wednesday that Jeffrey Epstein, the notorious sex trafficker he used to socialize with, had “died three or four years ago”. But Epstein died in federal custody in 2019, when Trump was president, not during the Biden administration.
So was the president lying or just confused about when these events took place?
The fact that the president recounted what must have been an imaginary conversation about the Unabomber with his uncle, and which had no obvious political benefit for him, led some observers to suggest that the 79-year-old was simply confused and exhibiting signs of age.
But, by suggesting that the Fed chair who now refuses to follow his orders was not his choice but Biden’s, and that Epstein’s much-speculated about death took place during the Biden administration, Trump might have been simply trying to confuse the public with a new, fictional, timeline.
Trump says FBI should investigate ‘the Jeffrey Epstein hoax’ as a criminal conspiracy against him
In an interview with Real America’s Voice, the far-right network created to host Steve Bannon’s podcast, Donald Trump said on Wednesday that the FBI should investigate what he called “the Jeffrey Epstein hoax” as part of a criminal conspiracy against him.
Trump made the comment after his host John Solomon, a partisan journalist who worked with Rudy Giuliani in 2019 to spread false rumors about Joe Biden’s anticorruption effort in Ukraine, said that he had confirmed that the FBI has opened an investigation into an alleged, decade-long criminal conspiracy to use the federal government against him.
Asked by Solomon what he thought the FBI should investigate, Trump brought up Epstein, saying that the furor over the Epstein files, along with allegations that his 2016 campaign had benefited from Russian interference, and special counsel Jack Smith’s attempt to prosecute him for attempting to overturn his 2020 election loss, were “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. “And you know some of the naive Republicans fall right into line.”
Trump went on to suggest that all of the files from the federal investigation into his late friend, the convicted sex offender Epstein, should not be released because they might include false information about him planted there by his Democratic rivals.
“All they have to do is put out anything credible,” Trump said, of the justice department’s decision not to release all of the Epstein files. “But, you know, that was run by the Biden administration for four years. I can imagine what they put into files,” Trump added.
He then suggested that files from the justice department’s investigation of the notorious sex trafficker and pedophile Epstein, who was arrested and died in jail in 2019 during Trump’s first term, were somehow as likely to be fake as allegations made against him in the Steele dossier.
Trump went on to suggest that the files on Epstein were of questionable veracity because they “were run by Chris Wray and they were run by Comey”, naming the two men who served as FBI director during his first term.
Elon Musk mocks Trump’s claim Epstein files are a hoax
In a series of posts on his social media platform X, Elon Musk mocked Donald Trump’s wild claim that files related to the federal investigation of Jeffrey Epstein, the late sex offender and longtime Trump friend, are “a hoax”.
“Wow, amazing that Epstein ‘killed himself’ and Ghislaine is in federal prison for a hoax,” Musk wrote in response to video of Trump’s attempt to deflect questions about Epstein, and his accomplice Ghislaine Maxwell, by casting doubt on the authenticity of the documents his justice department has refused to release.
“Not a single Epstein client has been prosecuted. Not a single one,” Musk pointed out in response to a copy of Trump’s long screed on the matter earlier in the day.
In response to the far-right podcaster Tim Pool, who said that “Trump is trying to nuke his base” by insisting that any of his supporters who “bought into” a hoax created by Democrats were “weaklings”, Musk wrote: “He should just release the files and point out which part is the hoax.”
Elsewhere on Musk’s platform, the podcaster Theo Von shared video of JD Vance agreeing with him in an old interview: “Seriously, we need to release the Epstein list, that is an important thing.” Von, who hosted Trump during last year’s campaign, added the comment: “Yeah, what changed?”
Federal lawsuit seeks to stop Ice agents from arresting people at immigration courts
A dozen immigrants who have been arrested at court hearings and their legal advocates filed a class-action lawsuit on Wednesday that seeks to stop Immigration and Customs Enforcement (Ice) officers from arresting migrants who are following the law by showing up at immigration courts and placing them on a fast-track to deportation.
The lawsuit filed in federal court in the District of Columbia accuses the department of homeland security, which oversees Ice, of colluding with the justice department to deprive thousands of people of basic due process rights guaranteed by the constitution by arresting them after court appearances.
The large-scale immigration court arrests that began in May have unleashed fear among asylum-seekers and immigrants. In what has become a familiar scene, a judge will grant a government lawyer’s request to dismiss deportation proceedings against an immigrant while Ice officers wait in the hallway to take them into custody.
Some of the immigrants have lived in the United States for years and were separated from family members, including US citizens, by their sudden arrests.
One plaintiff who was deported to Ecuador within weeks of being arrested at a hearing where he was prepared to file an asylum application based on persecution he had faced because of his advocacy for LGBTQ+ rights, is now living in hiding.
Skye Perryman, president of Democracy Forward, one of the groups that filed the lawsuit, said in a statement that the Trump administration is “weaponizing immigration courts by threatening people who follow the law” in an “unlawful scheme” that “will chill participation in the legal process”.
“People seeking refuge, safety, or relief should not be arrested, detained, and deported without a chance to be heard and given due process,” Perryman added.
“We are witnessing an authoritarian takeover of the US immigration court system by the Trump administration,” Keren Zwick, director of litigation at the National Immigrant Justice Center said. “People who attend their hearings to seek permission to remain in this country and comply with US immigration law are being rounded up and abruptly ripped from their families, homes and livelihoods.”
No ruling this week on Kilmar Ábrego’s legal status, federal judge says
A federal judge in Tennessee said on Wednesday that he would not rule this week on the legal status of Kilmar Ábrego, the migrant returned to the US after being wrongly deported to El Salvador, according to Adam Klasfeld, a legal reporter who was in the Nashville courtroom.
Federal prosecutors sought to convince US district judge Waverly Crenshaw to reverse a magistrate judge’s ruling allowing Ábrego – who faces human smuggling charges that were only developed after his wrongful deportation to a Salvadorian prison became a source of embarrassment for the Trump administration – to be released on bail to await a trial.
The Trump administration claimed Ábrego was in the MS-13 gang, although he was not charged with being a member and has repeatedly denied the allegation. Facing mounting pressure and a US supreme court order, the administration returned Ábrego to the US last month to face the smuggling charges, which his attorneys have called “preposterous”.
A department of homeland security investigator, Peter Joseph, testified about the investigation on Wednesday, detailing information authorities learned from alleged co-conspirators with Ábrego in a migrant smuggling ring.
Ábrego’s lawyers have suggested that the testimony of his alleged co-conspirators is unreliable, since all of them have either criminal or immigration cases of their own, with their deportations being deferred in exchange for their cooperation with the government.
Even if the judge in orders him released from criminal custody, the Trump administration has said Ábrego will immediately be detained by immigration authorities and face a second deportation.
Ábrego’s lawyers have asked US district judge Paula Xinis in Maryland to order the government to send him to Maryland if he is released in Tennessee, a request that aims to prevent his expulsion before trial.
Trump says he convinced Coca-Cola to use sugar instead of corn syrup
Donald Trump, who reportedly consumes a dozen Diet Cokes every day, just announced that he has convinced Coca-Cola to return to using sugar in its drinks.
“I have been speaking to Coca-Cola about using REAL Cane Sugar in Coke in the United States, and they have agreed to do so”, Trump posted on his social media network. “I’d like to thank all of those in authority at Coca-Cola. This will be a very good move by them — You’ll see. It’s just better!”
Coca-Cola currently sweetens its drinks with high-fructose corn syrup, in large part because a previous Republican president, Ronald Reagan, imposed tariffs on imported sugar in 1981, dramatically raising prices.
Those tariffs and quotas had the effect of incentivizing domestic corn syrup production and consumption in the United States. Trump’s initiative could have the unintended effect of lowering the demand for corn, the domestic production of which is heavily subsidized by the federal government.
If enough Americans agree with the president that Coca-Cola sweetened with sugar is better tasting, that could also cut against the efforts of his health secretary, Robert F Kennedy Jr, to make Americans healthier by getting them to consume less sweet, carbonated beverages.
Kennedy has supported efforts to prevent Americans from spending food-aid benefits on sugary, carbonated beverages.
High-fructose corn syrup isn’t necessarily worse for us than table sugar, Frank Hu of the Harvard School of Public Health told the Pittsburgh Post-Gazette in 2012, but it is also healthier to avoid both.
Hu, professor of nutrition and epidemiology, told the daly that the two sweeteners are chemically quite similar. High-fructose corn syrup, made from corn, is about 55% fructose and 40% glucose. Table sugar, or sucrose, is made from sugar cane or beets and is 50% glucose and 50% fructose. While high-fructose corn syrup often gets blamed for the nation’s obesity epidemic, Hu said, “we should worry about sugar in general”.
In 2020, the NBC News affiliate in Seattle spoke to experts who confirmed that Coca-Cola made in Mexico, where it is sweetened with sugar, is not healthier than Coca-Cola produced with corn syrup.
On social media, White House ignores Trump’s claim that Epstein files are ‘a hoax’
In keeping with the frantic pace of posting maintained by their boss, Donald Trump, the White House press office has a hyperactive social media feed on X, @RapidResponse47, that is very frequently updated with clips of the president’s statements, hour after hour.
The account has posted 49 times already on Wednesday, and featured seven video clips of Trump’s comments on a range of issues during his meeting with Bahrain’s prime minister Salman bin Hamad Al Khalifa. But the aides who run the account seem to be studiously avoiding one subject: Trump’s claim that the uproar over his administration’s decision not to release files from the federal investigation into Jeffrey Epstein, the late sex offender he knew well, is ‘a hoax’.
None of what Trump said about Epstein on Wednesday appeared on this official White House feed. Similarly, when Trump spoke to reporters on Tuesday, the account clipped and boosted his remarks on several other subjects, but ignored his claim that the subject of Epstein’s crimes was “sordid, but boring”.
That marks a change from February, when the president’s press team shared a clip of Trump’s attorney general, Pam Bondi, telling Fox host Jesse Watters, that she had the Epstein files on her desk. With a siren emoji, the account showed video of Bondi saying: “I think tomorrow, Jesse, breaking news right now, you’re going to see some Epstein information being released by my office”.
“What’s you’re going to see, hopefully tomorrow, is a lot of flight logs, a lot of names, a lot of information”, Bondi added. That information however has still not been released.
Donald Trump has said that he thinks China will begin sentencing people to death for fentanyl manufacturing and distribution.
Speaking at an event for the signing of the Halt Fentanyl Act, attended by family members of people who had died from overdoes, Trump said he imposed a tariff on China “because of fentanyl”.
“I think we’re going to work it out so that China is going to end up going from that to giving the death penalty to the people that create this fentanyl and send it into our country,” Trump said. “I believe that’s going to happen soon.”
Columbia adopts controversial definition of antisemitism amid federal grants freeze
Robert Tait
Columbia University has agreed to adopt a controversial definition of antisemitism as it pursues an agreement with the administration aimed at restoring $400m in federal government grants frozen over its alleged failure to protect Jewish students.
In a letter to students and staff, the university’s acting president, Claire Shipman, said it would incorporate the International Holocaust Remembrance Alliance’s definition of antisemitism into its anti-discrimination policies as part of a broad overhaul.
It is the latest in a string of concessions Columbia has made following criticisms – mainly from pro-Israel groups and Republican members of Congress – that university authorities had tolerated the expression of antisemitic attitudes in pro-Palestinian campus protests following the start of Israel’s assault on Gaza in 2023.
“Columbia is committed to taking all possible steps to combat antisemitism and the University remains dedicated to ensuring that complaints of discrimination and harassment of all types, including complaints based on Jewish and Israeli identity, are treated in the same manner,” wrote Shipman.
“Formally adding the consideration of the IHRA definition into our existing anti-discrimination policies strengthens our approach to combating antisemitism.”
The definition, which describes antisemitism as “a certain perception of Jews, which may be expressed as hatred toward Jews”, has been adopted by the US state department and several European government and EU groups.
However, critics have say it is designed to shield Israel by punishing legitimate criticism of the country. They also complain that it conflates antisemitism with anti-Zionism.
Among the examples of criticisms accompanying the definition are “claiming that the existence of a State of Israel is a racist endeavor”, “applying double standards by requiring of [Israel] a behavior not expected or demanded of any other democratic nations” and “accusing Jewish citizens of being more loyal to Israel … than to the interests of their own nations”.
Vance touts tax breaks in Pennsylvania as he makes White House’s first big pitch on Trump’s megabill
Vice-president JD Vance earlier made the administration’s first big pitch to sell the public on Donald Trump’s sweeping budget-and-policy package in the swing political turf of northeastern Pennsylvania.
Vance, whose tie-breaking vote got the bill through the Senate, touted the legislation’s tax breaks and cast Democrats as opponents of the cutting taxes because of their unanimous opposition to the legislation.
Democrats, who’ve decried the bill’s deep cuts to Medicaid and food stamps, along with other provisions, are expected to try to use it against Republicans in closely contested congressional campaigns next year that will determine control of Congress.
The GOP plans to use it to make their case as well, something the vice-president asked the crowd in working-class West Pittston to help with.
“Go and talk to your neighbors, go and talk to your friends, about what this bill does for America’s citizens. Because we don’t want to wake up in a year and a half and give the Democrats power back,” he said.
Speaking at at an industrial machine shop, the Vance was also quick to highlight the bill’s new tax deductions on overtime.
“You earned that money,” Vance said. “You ought to keep it in your pocket.”
He also promoted the legislation’s creation of a new children’s savings program, called Trump Accounts, with a potential $1,000 deposit from the treasury department.
Recognizing the significance of the coal and gas industry in Pennsylvania, he also talked up the ways the law seeks to promote energy extraction, such as allowing increased leasing for drilling, mining and logging on public lands, speeding up government approvals and cutting royalty rates paid by extraction companies.
“We are finally going to drill, baby drill and invest in American energy,” Vance said. “And I know you all love that.”
The historic legislation, which Trump signed into law earlier this month with near unanimous Republican support, includes key campaign pledges like no tax on tips but also cuts Medicaid and food stamps by a staggering $1.2tn.
Democrats recently held a town hall in House speaker Mike Johnson’s home state of Louisiana to denounce the legislation as a “reverse Robin Hood — stealing from the poor to give to the rich”.
Vance’s office declined to elaborate to the Associated Press on plans for other public events around the US to promote the bill. After his remarks, he visited a nearby diner where he picked up food and spoke to some of the patrons.
