President Donald Trump lashed out at four House Republicans who were backing a petition that would force a vote on the release of files related to sex offender Jeffrey Epstein.
In emails released by House Democrats on Wednesday, Epstein claimed that Trump "knew about the girls" who had been abused. The sex offender also referred to Trump as a "dog that hasn't barked" because he never disclosed the sex trafficking.
The White House's "rapid response" team fired off social media posts throughout the day, insisting that the release of the emails had been a "con job." However, White House Press Secretary Karoline Leavitt refused to deny allegations that Trump spent "hours" with one victim at Epstein's home.
By the afternoon, Trump was doing damage control on his Truth Social platform.
"The Democrats are trying to bring up the Jeffrey Epstein Hoax again because they'll do anything at all to deflect on how badly they've done on the Shutdown, and so many other subjects," the president wrote. "Only a very bad, or stupid, Republican would fall into that trap."
"There should be no deflections to Epstein or anything else, and any Republicans involved should be focused only on opening up our Country, and fixing the massive damage caused by the Democrats!" he exclaimed.
According to New York Times correspondent Annie Karni, Trump personally called Reps. Lauren Boebert (R-CO) and Nancy Mace (R-SC) to pressure them to remove their names from the Epstein petition.