The new revelation from the Wall Street Journal that President Donald Trump was informed by Attorney General Pam Bondi in May that his name was in the files on the Jeffrey Epstein sex trafficking case lines up suspiciously with an "abrupt shift" in the way the administration started messaging about the issue, Aaron Blake wrote for CNN on Thursday.
"That doesn’t mean there’s been a cover-up of any actual Epstein-related misconduct by Trump; there remains no real evidence of that. But the administration clearly started downplaying the Epstein information – in a rather abrupt shift – around the same time Trump was told his name appeared in the files," reported Blake. Furthermore, sources with inside knowledge "told CNN the files appeared to include several unsubstantiated claims about Trump and others that the Justice Department found not to be credible."
There was a distinct change in how the Trump administration outlined its commitments in the Epstein case around the time all of this was privately disclosed to Trump, Blake wrote.
"Prior to May, the administration had repeatedly promised extensive disclosures," he said. "Bondi in early March said Americans would 'get the full Epstein files,' subject to some redactions, and that 'everything’s going to come out to the public.' Trump said on April 22 that '100% of all of these documents are being delivered.' But by late May and early June, Patel and Bongino for the first time indicated there wasn’t much to the information and walked back those promises."
The administration's abrupt wrap-up of the Epstein review, while denying the existence of a "client list" that included rich and powerful people involved with Epstein, and the reluctance to release the full trove of documents, has led to uproar from Trump's own base and sent the administration scrambling to put out fires.
All of this was further exacerbated by reporting from the Wall Street Journal about a lewd birthday letter Trump sent Epstein in 2003, which the president denied and is currently making the focus of a libel lawsuit against the paper.
