Fox News’ Peter Doocy came to President Donald Trump’s defense Thursday over the president’s supposed ties to Jeffrey Epstein, the disgraced financier alleged to have maintained a client list of powerful people for blackmail purposes.
“When you look at President Trump's long history, he was familiar with Jeffrey Epstein, (but) there's no reason to think that President Trump knew that there was anything nefarious going on, but he knew who this guy was,” Doocy said.
“Now that Donald Trump is the president, he doesn't want to be talking about a guy who is long dead and that he doesn't think has any impact on global affairs that he is trying to shape. So President Trump is getting more and more frustrated.”
Trump has been under fire in recent weeks over his Justice Department’s report that concluded no evidence existed that Epstein maintained a client list. The Trump administration also signaled no further information would be released related to the case, despite that being a campaign pledge of his and many in his cabinet.
Doocy’s implication that no evidence exists to suggest that Trump, a close friend of Epstein in the 1990s and early 2000s, had no knowledge of “anything nefarious going on” has been challenged by critics, including by former Trump ally Elon Musk, who in June accused Trump of being “in the Epstein files” in a now-deleted social media post. Trump has been confirmed to have socialized frequently with Epstein in Palm Beach, Florida, and New York City, New York social circles; Epstein claimed he was Trump’s “closest friend for ten years” in 2017; and Trump flew on Epstein’s private jet at least seven times in the 1990s.
Still, Doocy insisted there was no reason to believe Trump had any knowledge of Epstein’s alleged human trafficking and blackmail operations, while admitting the White House’s strategy to confront critics has been flawed.
“The president's new strategy here is to try to discredit new Epstein concerns by tying them to different discredited narratives that have dogged him during his time in the Oval Office,” Doocy said.
“...In talking to White House officials, I don't think that they coordinated their initial message with (Attorney General) Pam Bondi, where we went from 'I have a list on my desk' to 'there's no list and nothing else is coming out,' but they are trying to get past this.”
