White House press secretary Karoline Leavitt set the record straight that President Donald Trump did not act as an FBI informant in the case of disgraced financier Jeffrey Epstein, The Hill reported. The rumor surfaced last week after House Speaker Mike Johnson mentioned it during a press conference.
Leavitt was asked about Johnson's claim on Tuesday during a White House press briefing. When Johnson was asked about Trump's supposed connections to Epstein, Johnson said that the president "was an FBI informant to try to take this stuff down" referring to the sex trafficker's heinous conduct.
"I can affirm that is not true," Leavitt told reporters. "I think the Speaker was referring to the fact that President Trump kicked Jeffrey Epstein out of his Mar-a-Lago property for reasons the president has already discussed," she added.
Johnson also took the opportunity to set the record straight on his previous remarks on Monday and called it "much ado about nothing" after the media's coverage of the throwaway line. According to CNN, Johnson clarified what he meant by his previous statement while speaking to the press.
"What I was referring to in that long conversation was what the (Epstein) victims’ attorney said. More than a decade ago, President Trump kicked Epstein out of Mar-a-Lago, and he was one of the only people, one of the only prominent people, as everyone has reported … that he was willing to help law enforcement go after this guy who was a disgusting child abuser, sex trafficker, all the allegations," Johnson explained.
"That’s what they heard. So the president was helpful in that," Johnson added.
"I don’t know if I used the right terminology, but that’s common knowledge, and everybody knows that. So this is much ado about nothing," Johnson said. The CNN reporter asked Johnson if Trump told him about being an informant, and the Louisiana Republican said it was "recounting what others have said" but that Trump had spoken out against "the Epstein evils many times" before.
"I was repeating what has been common knowledge for a long time. The president was helpful in trying to get Epstein for the law enforcement to go after Epstein. That’s always been my understanding. That’s common knowledge. It’s the public’s understanding. I didn’t — I was not breaking news there, OK? What I’m trying to emphasize is that the president is as disgusted about this as everyone is," Johnson said.
During the entire term of former President Joe Biden, the press did not seem interested in learning more about Epstein, his victims, or his crimes. Now that Trump is in office, they are demanding answers, which the Trump administration has admittedly been short on aside from the established narrative.
Trump has called this aspect of their curiosity a "hoax," which the leftist media has tried to claim was a dismissal of the entire story. Johnson was explaining this aspect when he said that Trump was an informant. "He’s not saying that what Epstein did is a hoax," Johnson explained on Friday.
"It’s a terrible, unspeakable evil. He believes that himself. When he first heard the rumor, he kicked him out of Mar-a-Lago," Johnson added, which is an established fact that even the media admits to.
"He was an FBI informant to try to take this stuff down. The president knows and has great sympathy for the women who have suffered these unspeakable harms," Johnson said, which is what sparked the media questions about the fact.
Trump may not have been an informant, but he certainly seemed like one of the few wealthy and powerful individuals who stopped associating with Epstein after getting to know him better. The left can spin this however they choose, but the truth is that they are the ones who looked the other way for years on the Epstein case, and America knows it.
