xvertigox

Fuck the paywall:

MAGA lawmaker Mike Collins lobbed a political grenade into efforts from Team Trump to limit his exposure to fallout from the Epstein files. Georgia Rep. Collins made a bombshell admission, that he believes Donald Trump’s name will be in the files, at a county GOP meeting, the Washington Examiner reported.

A constituent asked the MAGA lawmaker whether he believed Trump was in the files related to Jeffrey Epstein, the disgraced financier and convicted sex offender who died by suicide while in federal custody in New York City in August 2019 as he awaited trial on new sex trafficking charges.

“Yeah, I’m sure he’s in there,” Collins said, without providing evidence, according to an audio clip of the exchange uploaded to YouTube, titled, “HOT MIC: Republican caught saying Trump IS IN THE EPSTEIN FILES!”

The White House has repeatedly pushed back after reports emerged that Trump was told in May that he was in files related to Epstein. Trump and Epstein were once friendly, but the president said they fell out in 2004.

The Daily Beast contacted the White House and Collins for comment.

Collins said he believed Trump was in the documents because the president “was the one that was telling the FBI about it.”

“He’s the one that kicked [Epstein] out of Mar-a-Lago and then called the FBI,” the lawmaker continued, repeating his claim: “Yeah, yeah he’s in there.”

“So, what’s going to happen? Are you going to vote to release them?” the constituent asked.

“Oh, we need to release them. I have no problem releasing it, but you’ve got to go through the judicial,” Collins responded.

The MAGA lawmaker added, “I’m not a lawyer and I’m not a judge, but it is more complicated than just saying, ‘boom, here’s the files.’”

In a statement to the Washington Examiner, a Collins campaign spokesman said, “Mike’s words speak for themselves: President Trump was right about everything, kicked Epstein to the curb, and did nothing wrong. This ‘story’ is a massive nothingburger from never-Trump consultants using DNC talking points. They won’t stop Mike’s momentum delivering results for the America First agenda. Thank you for your attention to this matter.”

In July, The Wall Street Journal reported that Attorney General Pam Bondi told Trump during a routine briefing that his name appeared in the files. The newspaper said that this did not indicate any wrongdoing on his part.” The White House in response called it a “fake news story”.

In June, billionaire SpaceX and Tesla CEO Elon Musk also claimed, then appeared to backtrack, that Trump was named in the Epstein files.

Trump “is in the Epstein files,” he wrote in a post on X as he and the president engaged in a bitter online feud. He alleged that “that is the real reason they have not been made public.” Musk signed the post off by writing: “Have a nice day, DJT!”

Musk added in a follow-up post: “Mark this post for the future. The truth will come out.”

At the time, Trump brushed off the claims in an interview with NBC News.

“That’s called ‘old news.’ That’s been old news. That has been talked about for years. Even Epstein’s lawyer said I had nothing to do with it. It’s old news,” the president said.

Officials in the first Trump administration determined that Epstein’s death was a suicide, but conspiracy theories that he was killed to shield high-profile individuals have proliferated nonetheless.

The Trump administration, in February, declassified and released files related to Epstein, but they were highly redacted and did not offer major revelations. The FBI said in a July memo that a “systematic review revealed no incriminating ‘client list.”

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