White House Press Secretary Karoline Leavitt speaks in the Brady Press Briefing Room at the White House on July 17, 2025. Credit – Anna Moneymaker—Getty Images
The White House on Thursday attempted to close the door on President Donald Trump’s role in the Jeffrey Epstein saga, rejecting calls from within his own political base for a special prosecutor and casting his recent comments about the “Epstein Hoax” as a swipe at Democrats, not a dismissal of Epstein’s crimes.
Speaking from the briefing room, White House press secretary Karoline Leavitt faced a number of questions from reporters about the Administration’s decision to not release any more files from the case, which has alienated many of Trump’s most ardent supporters. Leavitt said that the White House had no authority over the release of sealed documents and deflected blame toward the Justice Department and the courts.
“In terms of redactions or grand jury seals, those are questions for the Department of Justice, those are also questions for the judges who have that information under a seal,” she said. “That’s out of the President’s control.”
The comments came amid a wave of backlash triggered by the Department of Justice’s memo earlier this month declaring there is no “client list” tied to Epstein, the deceased financier and convicted sex offender, and that no further criminal charges or disclosures would be coming. Many in Trump’s base began accusing him of falling short of what they expected him to do with the Epstein case, partly because of years of rhetoric from his allies—including Attorney General Pam Bondi and FBI Director Kash Patel—that a trove of damning information would be revealed if Trump returned to power.
Leavitt insisted that the President supports transparency “if the attorney general and the Department of Justice comes across any other credible evidence.” But she also made clear Trump is not entertaining calls—some coming from MAGA-aligned lawmakers like Reps. Lauren Boebert and Marjorie Taylor Greene—for a special prosecutor to investigate further.
“The President would not recommend a special prosecutor in the Epstein case. That’s how he feels,” she said.
Leavitt defended Trump’s handling of the case, praising what she called an “exhaustive review” conducted by Bondi, Patel, and Patel’s deputy Dan Bongino—three Trump loyalists installed during his second term. “They’ve spent many months going through all of the files related to Jeffrey Epstein,” Leavitt said, adding, “the President has been transparent. He has followed through on his promises to the American people, but he doesn’t like to see Democrats in the mainstream media covering this like it’s the biggest story.”
That message has not quelled the unrest within Trump’s base. High-profile voices from the MAGA world, including retired Lt. Gen. Michael Flynn, Turning Point USA’s Charlie Kirk, and conservative commentator Benny Johnson, have openly criticized Trump’s rhetoric and the Administration’s sudden shift in tone on the release of documents related to Epstein.
On Wednesday, Trump lashed out at his critics from the right, calling them “stupid” and “foolish” for falling for what he labeled the “Jeffrey Epstein Hoax.”
“My PAST supporters have bought into this ‘bulls—,’ hook, line, and sinker,” he wrote on Truth Social, arguing that Democrats had “conned” them.
Leavitt, asked to clarify Trump’s choice of words, insisted he was not dismissing Epstein’s alleged crimes, but rather criticizing Democrats, and alluding to the Biden Administration not drawing similar pushback for not releasing more information on the case. “The fact that Democrats have now seized on this, as if they ever wanted transparency when it comes to Jeffrey Epstein,” she said, “they didn’t do a dang thing when it came to transparency in regards to Jeffrey Epstein and his heinous crimes.”
Write to Nik Popli at nik.popli@time.com.
