Trump White House officials threaten to make Democrats 'regret' Epstein vote

A bill forcing the disclosure of more files related to the investigation of Jeffrey Epstein was passed by Congress on Tuesday evening. Despite President Donald Trump’s eleventh-hour switch to supporting the measure, administration officials speaking to Politico are now threatening retribution against Democrats because of it.

The bill, officially known as the Epstein Files Transparency Act, passed the House of Representatives by an overwhelming 427-1 margin, before then passing in the Senate unanimously. Once signed into law, it will require the Department of Justice to release all non-classified files pertaining to its investigation of Epstein, the deceased sex trafficker with ties to many powerful figures.

While Trump eventually came out in support of the bill days before it went up for a vote, he and his administration had strongly opposed it for months. Opponents alleged that the president took this stance out of fear that the files would incriminate him, given his close past association with Epstein, though Trump has long denied any wrongdoing.

Speaking with Politico anonymously on Wednesday, White House officials warned Democrats of potential revenge plays in response to the push for Epstein disclosures.

“The Democrats are going to come to regret this,” one official told the outlet. “Let’s start with Stacey Plaskett. You think we’re not going to make a scene of this?”

Rep. Stacey Plaskett is the non-voting Democratic congresswoman representing the U.S. Virgin Islands. In recently disclosed files related to Epstein, it was shown that she received and responded to text messages from the disgraced financier during a 2019 committee hearing.

A move to censure Plaskett over the incident failed in the House on Tuesday night, after the congresswoman denied any wrongdoing. She claimed that Epstein was merely a constituent of her’s in the Virgin Islands, and that it was not publicly known that he was under federal investigation at the time.

“President Trump has nothing to hide, but the Democrats should be very scared because they have secrets to hide,” another anonymous White House official told Politico. “Democrats are already trying their best to ignore one of their own members – Stacey Plaskett – texting with Epstein in 2019 during an Oversight hearing. These are the types of examples the [administration] will continue highlighting because it exposes the Democrats’ absolute hypocrisy on the issue."

“Democrats only started talking about the Epstein files once they thought they could use it to score political points against President Trump,” the second official said. “That will prove to be a mistake for them.”

Trump previously directed the DOJ to investigate connections between Epstein and prominent Democratic figures, including former President Bill Clinton and noted donor Reid Hoffman. Rep. Thomas Massie, the GOP co-sponsor of the disclosure bill, has suggested that this might be a ploy to keep certain files hidden under the guise of a federal investigation.