Johnson Walks Back Claim Trump Was FBI Informant on Epstein

“The Speaker is reiterating what the victims’ attorney said, which is that Donald Trump — who kicked Epstein out of Mar-a-Lago — was the only one more than a decade ago willing to help prosecutors expose Epstein for being a disgusting child predator,” the statement from Johnson’s office read.

During the event, Brad Edwards, an attorney who represents many of the victims, told reporters that Trump has done an “about-face” on Epstein since 2009.

Edwards said that when he spoke to Trump in 2009, Trump was “friendly” to the victims’ plight, and “did not think that it was a hoax and was trying to help.”

“And now it seems like all of a sudden somebody is in his ear, and he’s not,” Edwards said. “So I’m hoping he’ll come back to where he was back in 2009, be on the side of the victims and stand with us.”

“He got on the phone, he told me things that were helping our investigation,” Edwards said. “Our investigation wasn’t looking into him, but he was helping us then.”

The White House on Sunday insisted in a statement that Trump “has always been committed to justice and transparency for these victims.”

“That’s why the Trump Administration is releasing thousands of pages of documents and complying with Oversight requests,” said White House spokeswoman Abigail Jackson, referring to the inquiry being conducted by the House Oversight Committee. Jackson alleged that Democrats “ignored Epstein’s victims for years and are now only interested in them as a way to attack President Trump.”

“This is not a hoax,” Haley Robson, who noted she is a registered Republican, said Wednesday. “This is real trauma.”

Rep. Thomas Massie (R-Kentucky), a Republican who is a co-sponsor of the proposed legislation, said Sunday that he didn’t know whether Trump was an FBI informant.

“The lawyers for the victim said that Donald Trump had been helpful in 2009 in their case by giving them information. But being an informant implies some formal connection and ongoing relationship with the FBI,” Massie said on ABC’s “This Week.” “I think the speaker needs to clarify that. And if it’s a hoax, why was Donald Trump an informant to a hoax?”

“President Trump is the one who cooperated with the feds to get this guy,” she wrote. “President Trump is the one who is COMMITTED to protecting women and kids.”