Trump administration officials are perplexed, as many people are, by House Speaker Mike Johnson’s claims that Donald Trump was an FBI informant in the case against Jeffrey Epstein, who died by suicide in 2019 while awaiting trial on charges he sexually abused and trafficked scores of underage girls. The president and Epstein had a well-documented friendship.
On Thursday, Johnson made the confusing remarks about the president when a reporter asked him about Trump repeatedly referring to the Epstein scandal as “the Democrat Epstein Hoax.”
“What Trump is referring to is the hoax that the Democrats are using to try to attack him,” Johnson said, claiming the president’s feelings on the topic had been “misrepresented.” “He is not saying what Epstein did is a hoax. It’s a terrible, unspeakable evil, and he believes that himself. When he first heard the rumor, he kicked him out of Mar-a-Lago.”
Johnson then added the head-scratching claim that Trump “was an FBI informant to try to take this stuff down.”
The comment sent the internet ablaze, and could surely make good South Park fodder.
According to five Trump administration officials and others close to the president, Johnson’s “informant” claim on Thursday sparked widespread confusion within the ranks of Trump’s government, with several senior officials blindsided or just completely perplexed by what the Trump-aligned House speaker could have possibly meant.
For some in the administration, the confusion spilled over into Saturday, with some officials still unsure about whether Johnson was citing some explosive, unheard-of insider information, or if he misspoke or was freelancing extemporaneously.
“What the hell is he doing?” one senior Trump administration appointee told Rolling Stone, after being asked about the Johnson “informant” comment.
Other Trump advisers say it’s their understanding that Johnson was referencing past claims made in the media about Trump; however, these claims did not amount to the idea he was a federal “informant.”
FBI officials, including deputy director Dan Bongino, did not reply to Rolling Stone’s inquiries on Saturday about whether or not their boss Trump was a snitch for the feds. Trump has yet to comment on Johnson’s claim.
Johnson’s remarks come as survivors of sex offender Epstein teamed with lawmakers to pressure Trump’s Justice Department to release more information. On Wednesday, Rep. Ro Khanna (D-Calif.) said, “Less than one percent of those files have been released.”
Trump had promised to release the so-called Epstein files during his 2024 campaign, and his administration appeared ready to try to score points with the MAGA base on the topic. In July, though, the Justice Department backtracked, issuing a memo asserting that Epstein died by suicide and that his long-awaited “client list” doesn’t exist.
Khanna along with 212 Democrats and four Republicans are pulling for the Epstein Files Transparency Act, a discharge petition that calls on the DOJ to release all unclassified records related to Epstein and Ghislaine Maxwell, Epstein’s accomplice who was sentenced to 20 years in prison for sex trafficking. Meanwhile, Republicans are calling on their ranks to support the efforts of the House Oversight and Government Reform Committee. The committee released 33,000 documents with no apparent revelations on Tuesday.
Survivors are compiling a list of Epstein’s associates based on their own stories while the Trump administration continues to assert that an Epstein client list does not exist.
