The White House has taken control of the Department of Justice's social media account to manage the public relations battle over the Jeffrey Epstein files, alarming some.
The Trump administration estimates there's another week to go in the congressionally mandated release of the DOJ's files on Epstein's sex trafficking network, with up to 700,000 more pages to review, and the White House wants to control the message coming out of the federal agency, reported Axios.
"Trump and the Justice Department also have compounded their problems with clumsy messaging and puzzling redactions made while pledging transparency," Axios reported. "The White House has begun managing the DOJ's account on X, an effort to finish out the year and the Epstein file disclosure requirements set by Congress."
"The account is also taking on a sharper tone that has more of a rapid-response campaign edge and less of the stodgy just-the-facts tone associated with the department," Axios reported.
That new tone was on display in the DOJ account's response to the widely followed "Pop Base" account, refuting a widely reported letter purportedly from Epstein to sex offender Larry Nassar, as "fake," and followed up with a snippy retort to veteran congressional reporter Jamie Dupree's question about knowingly releasing a fake document.
"Because the law requires us to release all documents related to Jeffrey Epstein in our possession so that’s what we are doing, you dope," the DOJ account posted. "Are you suggesting we break the law?"
Critics blasted the White House for taking control of an independent executive agency's social media account.
"Utterly corrupt. Utterly lawless," said former Republican congressman Joe Walsh. "Continuing to destroy the very independence of the Justice Department. But not one member of my former political party will say a damn thing. Every Republican, every single Republican on the ballot, needs to lose in 2026."
Administration officials are frustrated and annoyed by the headlines related to Trump's presence in the files and their inability to explain away his relationship to the disgraced financier, and the White House is furious at Congress.
"It's a combination of extreme frustration at everything: at what Congress did, at our response to it, and a concern that it won't go away," an official said. "There's also a little bit of indignation at the media — that this wasn't even a story for years and years, and now, not only is it a story, but the top of many news pages on a given day."
Some 750,000 records have already been reviewed and disclosed by a team of around 200, according to one official, and another official said that not all of the remaining 700,000 documents would be released because many of them are duplicates, but that person said the public could expect thousands more.
"This will end soon," another official said. "The conspiracy theories won't."
