Donald Trump has stepped back into the spotlight after spending days dodging questions about the explosive batch of Jeffrey Epstein emails released earlier this week. The messages, which Democrats published on Wednesday, included claims from Epstein that Trump “knew about the girls” he abused and spent “hours” at his home with one of his victims.
Trump didn’t take questions from reporters, but he did unload on Truth Social. He accused Democrats of throwing their “withering power” behind what he called “the Epstein Hoax” to distract from their own political problems. He also took aim at Republicans he sees as too soft, saying they’d fallen for a narrative designed to damage him.
According to Trump, any push for the FBI’s Epstein files should be directed at well-known Democratic figures. “Epstein was a Democrat, and he is the Democrat’s problem, not the Republican’s problem,” he wrote, pointing to Bill Clinton, Reid Hoffman, and Larry Summers. “Don’t waste your time with Trump. I have a Country to run!”
In another post, Trump said he’d ordered Attorney General Pam Bondi to investigate Epstein’s ties to Clinton, Hoffman, Summers, and “many others,” calling the controversy “another Russia, Russia, Russia scam.”
His outburst arrives more than 48 hours after the emails hit the Oversight Committee’s site, prompting Republicans on the panel to dump over 20,000 additional documents from Epstein’s estate in an effort to overwhelm the initial revelations. But the move backfired. Instead, the release surfaced hundreds of messages where Epstein insulted Trump, called him “crazy,” and even bragged he could “take him down.”
Until Friday morning, Trump had left the pushback to Press Secretary Karoline Leavitt, who identified the “unnamed victim” referenced in the emails as Virginia Giuffre. Giuffre, who died earlier this year, had previously said Trump behaved appropriately around her. Leavitt repeated Trump’s past claim that Epstein was banned from Mar-a-Lago for inappropriate behavior and accused news outlets of using the email release to distract from the government reopening.
Meanwhile, Congress is gearing up for a showdown. A bipartisan group in the House forced a vote next week on the Epstein Files Transparency Act, which would require the Department of Justice to release its case files on Epstein. If it clears the House and earns enough Republican support in the Senate, the bill will land on Trump’s desk. He’ll then have to sign it, veto it, or let it become law without his signature.
Inside the White House, aides say the president is frustrated and unable to shift the conversation to safer political ground. And part of the problem is of his own making. On the campaign trail last year, he strongly implied he’d release Epstein’s files if voters returned him to office. Early in his term, Attorney General Bondi even teased a “client list” review. But in June, the DOJ sparked outrage by quietly announcing that it had nothing suitable for release.
Six years after Epstein died in a Manhattan jail, the controversy still follows Washington everywhere it goes. And this time, it’s hitting the one person who’s been trying hardest to avoid it.
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