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Vice President JD Vance was adamant Monday that President Trump “has nothing to hide” with respect to notorious sex predator Jeffrey Epstein, while ripping into the George W. Bush and Barack Obama administrations for their handling of the case.
“The president has been very clear. We’re not shielding anything,” Vance told reporters at an event in Canton, Ohio meant to promote the newly-enacted One Big Beautiful Bill Act.
“The president has directed the attorney general to release all credible information and, frankly, to go and find additional credible information related to the Jeffrey Epstein case,” added the Ohio native. “He’s been incredibly transparent about that stuff. But some of that stuff takes time.”
Vance echoed other top officials in stressing the need to safeguard the names of victims in any additional disclosures about Epstein, who was found dead in his Manhattan jail cell Aug. 10, 2019, while awaiting federal trial on sex trafficking charges.
Before ascending to public office, Vance suggested the government was not being transparent about the late pedophile or his purported network of associates.
“For 20 years, you had Obama and George W. Bush’s Department of Justice go easy on this guy. They didn’t fully investigate the case,” the 40-year-old charged Monday. “They didn’t show any curiosity about the case, and now Donald J. Trump is asking his Department of Justice to show full transparency.”
“If you want to criticize the people who aren’t showing full transparency, you ought to go after the administrations that went easy on Jeffrey Epstein, the administrations that concealed this case for 20 years, and the administrations that failed to show full transparency.”
In 2007, then-Miami US Attorney Alex Acosta cut a deal with Epstein allowing him to plead guilty to Florida state charges of solicitation of prostitution and procuring a minor for prostitution. Under the plea agreement, Epstein was only confined for 13 months, spending much of that period on work release.
Acosta was named Labor Secretary by Trump at the beginning of the president’s first term, but resigned in July 2019, days after Epstein’s arrest by federal investigators, amid an outcry over the plea deal.
“Donald J. Trump, I’m telling you, he’s got nothing to hide,” Vance insisted. “His administration has got nothing to hide, and that’s why he’s been an advocate for full transparency in this case.”
Trump has faced a firestorm in the wake of a Justice Department and FBI memo issued July 6 — exactly six years after Epstein’s last arrest — that concluded the 66-year-old killed himself in his prison cell and did not possess a “client list” of powerful associates who are claimed to have engaged in sex with girls as young as 14, contrary to widespread speculation.
The president has lashed out at some of his supporters for believing what he calls the “Jeffrey Epstein hoax” and accused the Democrats of pushing bad-faith claims about the case.
Last week, a Florida federal judge rejected a DOJ request to release transcripts of grand jury testimony from the investigation into Epstein that preceded the 2007 plea deal.
Meanwhile, in Tallahassee, Epstein’s accomplice Ghislaine Maxwell sat for two days of interviews with Justice Department officials, led by Deputy Attorney General Todd Blanche.
