US President Donald Trump on Wednesday lashed out at his own supporters over demands that the White House release a supposed “client list” belonging to disgraced financier and accused paedophile Jeffrey Epstein.
Mr Trump has come under rare scrutiny from Maga supporters after he brushed off the Epstein client list as a hoax. The Department of Justice last week said there is no such list.
“They haven’t learnt their lesson, and probably never will, even after being conned by the lunatic left for eight long years,” the President said in a post on his Truth Social platform, describing those calling for the full release of the Epstein files as his “past supporters” who have bought into the Epstein conspiracy “hook, line and sinker”.
“I have had more success in six months than perhaps any president in our country’s history, and all these people want to talk about, with strong prodding by the fake news and the success starved Dems, is the Jeffrey Epstein hoax.”
He added: “Let these weaklings continue forward and do the Democrats work, don’t even think about talking of our incredible and unprecedented success, because I don’t want their support any more!”
Conspiracy theories over a purported client list have circulated for years, growing in intensity after Epstein – convicted on sex trafficking and prostitution charges, and accused of conspiracy to traffic minors for sex – died in his jail cell in 2019. Investigators say he took his own life but strange circumstances around the time of his death have fuelled theories he was murdered.
Mr Trump himself, as well as many figures in his administration, including FBI director Kash Patel and his deputy Dan Bongino, have spent years stoking such theories.
Many of Mr Trump's supporters believed he would uncover Washington's shady secrets, including the files connected to Epstein. Epstein is believed to have had many high-level contacts that engaged his services to procure underage girls for sex, and those who ascribe to the conspiracy theories think he was killed to bury the evidence.
Epstein's former lawyer, Alan Dershowitz, wrote an opinion piece in Wednesday's Wall Street Journal that no current office holder has been named as a client by any alleged victim.
“I have seen nothing that would suggest anything improper or even questionable by Mr Trump,” he said.
The lawyer also said “it is clear” that Epstein committed suicide.
“What isn’t clear is whether he was assisted by jail personnel,” he added.
Earlier this year, US Attorney General Pam Bondi said she had the Epstein client list sitting on her desk to review, but then last week she claimed she had meant the entirety of the files. Ms Bondi said there was no client list and that Epstein had died by suicide.
The President has backed Ms Bondi's assessment and has brushed off the backlash, saying he does not understand that “fascination” with the case and that it was time to move on. But his supporters do not appear interested in doing so.
“Why was Epstein in prison then? How about Ghislaine [Maxwell, Epstein's long-time girlfriend]? For a hoax? I don't think so,” one user wrote. “This is the hill we all die on.”
Another user said promises to reveal the Epstein files were “why Trump won in 2016. He promised to rip the mask off the globalist elite and drain their filthy swamp.”
Axios reported last week that Mr Bongino had clashed with Ms Bondi over the release of the files, primarily that the Attorney General had publicly overpromised and underdelivered disclosures.
In Congress, representatives Paulina Luna and Marjorie Taylor Greene, both staunch Maga supporters, called on the administration to release more information on the Epstein files, saying the American people deserve to know the truth.
Representative Thomas Massie has said he would launch a long-shot procedural manoeuvre on a Democrat-sponsored bill to force a vote on releasing the Epstein files. Republicans on the House Rules Committee has twice blocked Democrats from attempting to force a vote.
