'Desecration': Trump lashes out at reporter for asking about sex offender Jeffrey Epstein
WASHINGTON - President Donald Trump lashed out at a reporter for asking questions about convicted sex offender Jeffrey Epstein a day after the Justice Department and the FBI released a memo declaring the disgraced financier died by suicide and also that investigators had found no evidence Epstein kept a "client list."
Addressing U.S. Attorney General Pam Bondi during a Trump Cabinet meeting on July 8, New York Post journalist Steve Nelson asked for clarity about a missing minute in a recently released video surrounding Epstein’s death, who killed himself in a jail cell in Manhattan in 2019 – and about which foul play conspiracies abound. Nelson also asked during the July 8 meeting if Epstein had worked for an American or foreign intelligence agency.
“Are you still talking about Jeffrey Epstein? This guy's been talked about for years,” Trump interjected before Bondi could answer. “Are people still talking about this guy, this creep? That is unbelievable. Do you want to waste the time?”
Trump then continued criticizing the reporter, calling his line of questioning a “desecration” while the country was dealing with the Texas flood tragedy that killed more than 100 people over the July 4th weekend.
The FBI and the Justice Department on July 7 released a memo saying their investigation had concluded that the Epstein had died by suicide and provided a link to a video footage from the common area of the Special Housing Unit where Epstein was housed at the time of his death.
“As DOJ’s Inspector General explained in 2023, anyone entering or attempting to enter the tier where Epstein’s cell was located from the SHU common area would have been captured by this footage,” the memo stated, while adding that the investigation found that nobody entered the area.
Bondi said the missing minute stems from the Bureau of Prisons practice of resetting the video every night since it is a outdated 1990s-based system.
“Every night should have the same minute missing,” said Bondi. “So we're looking for that video to release that as well, showing that a minute is missing every night.”
To the reporter’s question about Epstein’s connection to intelligence agencies, Bondi replied: “I have no knowledge about that.”
Trump’s association with Epstein , whom he knew socially, has dogged him since his first term in office. In 2019, Trump said he’d had a “falling out” with Epstein, whom he described as a “Palm Beach fixture,” in the mid-2000s. Their connection was back in the spotlight when Tesla CEO Elon Musk linked Trump to Epstein during the height of their feud after the billionaire started attacking the sweeping tax, policy and spending bill the president was pushing through the GOP-led Congress.
“Time to drop the really big bomb: @realDonaldTrump is in the Epstein files," Musk, who headed Trump's Department of Government Efficiency until May, wrote in a now-deleted X post. "That is the real reason they have not been made public. Have a nice day, DJT!"
“Mark this post for the future. The truth will come out,” Musk wrote in another post, just minutes later.
Several MAGA influencers have also criticized Bondi and other members of the Trump administration over the fact that the FBI found no evidence of a “client list” kept by Epstein, seemingly contradicting Bondi’s prior statements.
Bondi tried to clarify during the July 8 Cabinet meeting that all she meant in her past comment was that the Epstein file had been on her desk.
“I was asked a question about the client list, and my response was, it's sitting on my desk to be reviewed, meaning the file,” she said.
Swapna Venugopal Ramaswamy is a White House correspondent for Paste BN. You can follow her on X @SwapnaVenugopal