An explosive, in-depth report by The Wall Street Journal details the desperation of the Trump administration to quash or at least tame the crisis surrounding President Donald Trump and late convicted sex trafficker Jeffrey Epstein.
The report, titled "Inside the White House Struggle to Tame the Epstein Crisis: Finger-pointing, disorganization and unforced errors by Trump advisers made the problem worse," shows an agitated president eager to move away from the growing scandal.
The president, reports the WSJ, said he "couldn't understand why people were so obsessed with the deceased financier and sex offender," and tried to justify his friendship with him that he alleged ended before Epstein's first arrest in 2006.
“'Why is everyone so fixated on the issue?' he wanted to know. What would make it die down?” the WSJ reported.
Trump, the report said, complained that “people don’t understand that Palm Beach in the 90s was a different time," and immediately "called influential allies" for advice on how to handle the crisis.
When the Justice Department said in July that its review of the Epstein evidence found "no incriminating client list," one that Trump promised to release during his 2024 presidential campaign, things only got worse for the president.
“It was like a bomb went off after that statement went out,” one senior White House official told the WSJ.
“This may be the worst managed PR event in history,” said Ty Cobb, who led the Trump White House’s response to a special counsel probe into the Trump campaign’s ties to Russia in 2017.
And though Trump now dismisses questions about the Epstein files as irrelevant, things are only ramping up.
Following Democrat Adelita Grijalva's special election win in Arizona Tuesday, House Rep. Thomas Massie declared victory on having enough votes to release the Epstein, prompting threats to him and his three Republican co-signers.
"They’re going to have a vote. I think they’re coming to terms with that,” Massie said.