Democrats pounced on lurid stories about President Trump detailed in a new round of documents released from sex offender Jeffrey Epstein’s criminal file, but the Justice Department warned it’s likely all fake.
Among the new material is an Oct. 27, 2020, FBI report about an unidentified limo driver who claimed a woman told him that Mr. Trump and Epstein raped her and that she turned up in a small Oklahoma town with her head “blown off.”
Not true, Justice Department officials said.
“Some of these documents contain untrue and sensationalist claims made against President Trump that were submitted to the FBI right before the 2020 election,” Justice Department officials said. “To be clear: the claims are unfounded and false, and if they had a shred of credibility, they certainly would have been weaponized against President Trump already.”
The limo driver’s story grew even wilder. He told the FBI that one of the men involved with the alleged rape victim served as a security guard for President Clinton and first lady Hillary Clinton and tried to “set up” an unidentified person “for the bombing in Oklahoma City.” The security guard, a man named John W. Nichols, was fired by the Clintons, the limo driver claimed, after Mrs. Clinton walked into a restaurant drunk and yelled at an unidentified person.
His story makes little sense.
SEE ALSO: Justice Department discredits lurid claims about Trump in latest Epstein file reveal
The Oklahoma City bombing of the Alfred P. Murrah Federal Building, which killed 167 people, occurred in 1995, during Mr. Clinton’s first term, and when the Clintons were under Secret Service protection. Two men were convicted of the crime: Timothy McVeigh, who was put to death, and his accomplice, Terry Nichols, who is serving a life sentence.
Another newly released document, allegedly written and signed by Epstein in 2019 as he sat in a New York City jail cell awaiting prosecution on sex trafficking charges, said Mr. Trump is attracted to “young, nubile girls.”
Justice Department officials said Tuesday that the Epstein jail letter, written to fellow incarcerated sex offender Larry Nassar, “is fake.”
The FBI concluded that the letter was a phony because the handwriting did not match Epstein’s, the letter was postmarked out of Northern Virginia, three days after Epstein’s suicide in a New York City jail cell, and did not list his inmate number, which would have been required for outgoing prisoner mail.
Signed by “J. Epstein,” the letter addresses Nassar, who is serving 125 years in prison for molesting members of the U.S. women’s gymnastics team when he was the team doctor.
“As you know by now, I have taken the ‘short route’ home,” the letter to Nassar reads. “Good luck! We shared one thing … our love and caring for young ladies and the hope they’d reach their full potential. Our President also shares our love of young, nubile girls.”
SEE ALSO: 30,000 more Epstein files released, a few with Trump’s name
Epstein also lamented in the note: “Life is unfair.”
The salacious material, despite obvious signs that it was made up, nonetheless spread like wildfire on social media. The material was amplified by top Democrats eager to tie Mr. Trump to Epstein’s sex crimes despite lacking any objective evidence that the president was involved.
“Disgusting and abhorrent — and just the tip of the iceberg,” said Senate Minority Leader Charles E. Schumer, New York Democrat, reposting the fake Epstein letter to Nassar. “Everything must be brought to light.”
Democrats and a handful of Republicans forced the House to vote on legislation to make the government’s Epstein files public. The bill passed through Congress with overwhelming support, and Mr. Trump signed it.
The law compelled the release of all the Justice Department’s files related to its investigation of Epstein, including documents that make unverified and outlandish claims.
Democrats said Mr. Trump has been hiding the files to shield his own culpability.
Mr. Trump and Epstein palled around in the 1990s and early 2000s.
The files released so far show Epstein surrounded by Democrats, music stars, scholars and other wealthy and influential people.
They include decades-old photos of Mr. Clinton relaxing in a hot tub with a partially obscured female and swimming in a pool with Epstein associate and convicted sex abuse conspirator Ghislaine Maxwell. Former top Clinton aide Doug Band also appears in photos along with luminaries, including rock star Mick Jagger, British royal Andrew Mountbatten-Windsor, technology billionaire and philanthropist Bill Gates, CBS News anchor Walter Cronkite, former New Mexico Gov. Bill Richardson, a Democrat, and filmmaker Woody Allen.
Clinton administration Treasury Secretary Lawrence H. Summers resigned his post at Harvard University after newly released emails showed he maintained close ties to Epstein long after Epstein’s 2007 conviction on charges of soliciting prostitution from a minor.
Mr. Trump’s friendship with Epstein essentially ended over a real estate deal in 2004. Mr. Trump said he kicked Epstein out of his Mar-a-Lago club in 2007 for recruiting his female employees from the club spa.
“I have a great spa, one of the best spas in the world in Mar-a-Lago,” Mr. Trump told reporters in July. “And people were taken out of the spa. Hired by him. In other words, gone. And other people would come and complain, ‘This guy is taking people from the spa.’ I didn’t know that. And then when I heard about it, I told him, I said, ‘Listen, we don’t want you taking our people, whether it was spa or not spa.’ I don’t want him taking people. And he was fine. And then not too long after that, he did it again. And I said, ‘Out of here.’”
• Susan Ferrechio can be reached at sferrechio@washingtontimes.com.
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