Former US President Donald Trump sharply criticized a journalist who raised a question about Jeffrey Epstein during a cabinet meeting on Tuesday, calling the issue "defamation", News.bg reports.
His reaction came a day after the Justice Department announced that Epstein died of suicide and that the so-called "client list" did not exist.
It all started when a reporter approached Attorney General Pam Bondi about the recent review of the investigation into the scandalous financier, whose death in 2019 sparked a wave of speculation and conspiracies. Before Bondi could respond, Trump interrupted:
"Are you still talking about Jeffrey Epstein? This perverted man? Are people still talking about him? That's incredible," Trump said. "I can't believe you're asking that question when we have such important events — and the tragedy in Texas. It just seems like a desecration."
Despite Trump's reaction, Pam Bondi responded anyway. She dismissed widely held theories about Epstein's death and the lack of a client list. She said a minute of security footage of Epstein's detention was missing because of an outdated system that reboots every night. She also said that videos containing child pornography would not be released because of their nature.
"They would never be released. "They will never see the light of day," Bondi said.
Epstein was accused of trafficking and sexually abusing dozens of underage girls. In 2008, he pleaded guilty to prostitution charges in Florida as part of a controversial plea deal to avoid federal charges. A decade later, he was arrested on new charges of human trafficking and sexual exploitation, but died in prison before he could stand trial. His death was ruled a suicide by hanging.
The Justice Department completed a systematic review this week, concluding that Epstein did not extort high-profile figures and that no "client list" was found. The report found no credible evidence that he was involved in a network with other high-profile figures.
In an interview with Fox News earlier this year, Bondi said that she had documents on her desk related to Epstein, but also to other historical cases such as those of Martin Luther King Jr. and John F. Kennedy.
Last month, at the height of the conflict between Trump and Elon Musk, the latter claimed without evidence that the administration had covered up information about Epstein. Trump responded by sharing a post by a lawyer who claimed that Epstein personally said that there was no information that would harm Trump.
Meanwhile, a wave of doubts and criticism of the Justice Department's conclusions arose on social media. Many are asking how it is possible that Ghislaine Maxwell, Epstein's partner, was convicted of child trafficking without a single named client.
“Ghislaine Maxwell was sentenced to 20 years for child trafficking, and now they tell us there were no clients? Who was buying these children then?“, reads one of the most shared posts on X, viewed over 2.4 million times.