White House Denies Trump Lashed Out at Epstein Victims in Private After Insiders Leaked to Rolling Stone
The White House denied that President Donald Trump has been lashing out at victims of dead sex criminal Jeffrey Epstein after insider sources leaked the story to Rolling Stone.
Epstein victims and their family members have been vocal in their criticism of the way the so-called “Epstein Files” issue is being handled.
According to reporting from Rolling Stone’s Nikki McCann Ramirez and Asawin Suebsaeng, Trump has been lashing out over the criticism in private:
In recent weeks, according to two sources familiar with his private remarks, Trump has repeatedly critiqued the string of media appearances by Epstein accusers and their families, arguing that some of them are just trying to make him look bad, or implying that he did something wrong during his time as one of Epstein’s friends and party companions. At times, Trump has said that some of these people speaking out are, in his words, clearly of a “Democrat” political affiliation, while wondering aloud if some of them are coordinating with prominent liberal attorneys or groups.
“None of this is true,” a White House official said in response to a request for comment. “Just another desperate attempt by the failing Rolling Stone.”
Suebsang was a guest on Thursday night’s edition of MSNBC’s All In with Chris Hayes, during which he revealed to guest host Antonia Hylton that his reporting was based on sources “in and out of” the Trump administration:
HYLTON: It sort of sounds from your reporting like Donald Trump sees himself as the victim here, and not all the survivors who were personally impacted by Epstein.
SUEBSAENG: Absolutely. And that is par for the course for this president whatever is going on on the political or personal landscape, he always values casting himself as the victim, as the besieged one. Even as situation, as black and white as this one it’s pretty clear who the survivors are and who the victims and alleged victims and the accusers are for something especially so heinous as what we’ve come to know with regards to the Jeffrey Epstein saga and publicly.
One of the things that got us onto reporting this out is that public facing, Trump is often very garrulous in how he insults his enemies, big and small, who come after him or who he feels like they’re coming after him, especially when he’s sitting as leader of the free world. There is no low level to punch down that is too low for him. But for some reason, he was conspicuously silent about these families and these individual accusers so to figure out, OK, with our sources in and out of the administration, what is he saying privately? How does — how is he viewing these media campaigns from these different families and from these different accusers?
And as you put in your intro, when you reference our reporting, it’s not a positive one. He is getting really, really annoyed in recent weeks with these individuals accusing them of being essentially Democratic operatives coordinating with supposedly this liberal media and liberal lawyer ecosystem that he thinks is just out to get him and make him look bad and imply to the public that maybe he did something wrong or super fishy or whatever during his years of palling around with the country’s most notorious pedophile, Jeffrey Epstein. So again, when it comes to the character and politicking of Donald Trump, sadly par for the course.
Watch above via MSNBC’s All In with Chris Hayes.