Until this week, President Donald Trump was fiercely opposed to the Department of Justice (DOJ) releasing its remaining evidence on deceased sex trafficker Jeffrey Epstein. But now that the bill is likely to soon arrive at his desk, Trump has abruptly changed his tune.
But despite Trump's about-face on the Epstein files, White House officials are hinting that the president is holding a grudge against Democrats who used the Epstein files as a political cudgel. Several unnamed White House sources anonymously told Politico on Wednesday that Trump is already planning another Epstein-related retribution campaign against several Democrats.
"The Democrats are going to come to regret this,” one White House official said. “Let’s start with Stacey Plaskett. You think we’re not going to make a scene of this?"
"President Trump has nothing to hide, but the Democrats should be very scared because they have secrets to hide," another official told the outlet. "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."
Republicans recently failed in their attempt to censure Del. Stacey Plaskett (D-V.I.) over her text message exchanges with Epstein during a 2019 hearing. Rep. Jamie Raskin (D-Md.) defended Plaskett by pointing out that Epstein was a resident of the Virgin Islands, and that Plaskett was communicating with a constituent. Reps. Don Bacon (R-Neb.), Lance Gooden (R-Texas) and Dave Joyce (R-Ohio) voted with Democrats against censuring Plaskett.
Trump has also instructed Attorney General Pam Bondi to investigate top Democrats and Democratic donors over their ties to Epstein. LinkedIn co-founder Reid Hoffman, who Trump explicitly named, has called for the full release of the Epstein files, saying they will prove his innocence and that his interactions with Epstein were limited to fundraising for the Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT). But the Trump White House continues to insist that Democrats have more to fear from the files than Republicans.
“Democrats only started talking about the Epstein files once they thought they could use it to score political points against President Trump,” an unnamed official said. “That will prove to be a mistake for them.”
Click here to read Politico's full report.