'Pure malpractice': Former Trump official rips his team over handling of Epstein controversy

Political commentator and former White House communications director Alyssa Farah Griffin sharply criticized President Donald Trump Sunday, calling the drawn‑out fallout over the Epstein case “pure malpractice” and lamenting the president’s inability to stay on message.

“This did not need to be a weeks-long story that’s now permeated pop culture and beyond. Just politics," Farah Griffin, who served as a White House communications director in 2020 during Trump's first presidency, told Jake Tapper during an appearance on CNN Sunday morning.

Farah Griffin argued that Trump’s advisers and the president himself allowed the controversy to balloon into a dominant news cycle problem, distracting from his governing agenda. “He needs to somehow get this back to the Department of Justice,” she said, urging Trump to stop publicly discussing potential pardons for Ghislaine Maxwell or others.

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Despite this, she said Trump's visit to Scotland might help him divert attention away from the Epstein controversy. “Sometimes when you’ve got a bad news story, the best thing you can do is just move away and focus on something else," she said.

She continued: “The fact that this has dragged out for so long is just pure malpractice… by those advising him and the president’s inability to stay on message.”

Looking ahead to the midterm elections, now about a year and a half away, Farah Griffin emphasized that sustained focus on the controversy would harm Republicans nationwide. “There’s going to be 20 other news cycles that happen before then, but people actually care a lot about this, and it will matter to House members who are up for reelection.”

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