\n<\/p>\n
\n\tTrump administration officials are perplexed, as many people are, by House Speaker Mike Johnson\u2019s claims that Donald Trump was an FBI informant in the case against Jeffrey Epstein, who died by suicide in 2019 while awaiting trial on charges he sexually abused and trafficked scores of underage girls. The president and Epstein had a well-documented friendship.<\/p>\n
\n\tOn Friday, Johnson made the confusing remarks about the president when a reporter asked him about Trump repeatedly referring to the Epstein scandal as \u201cthe Democrat Epstein Hoax.\u201d<\/p>\n
\n\t\u201cWhat Trump is referring to is the hoax that the Democrats are using to try to attack him,\u201d Johnson said, claiming the president\u2019s feelings on the topic had been \u201cmisrepresented.\u201d \u201cHe is not saying what Epstein did is a hoax. It\u2019s a terrible, unspeakable evil, and he believes that himself. When he first heard the rumor, he kicked him out of Mar-a-Lago.\u201d<\/p>\n
\n\tJohnson then added the head-scratching claim that Trump \u201cwas an FBI informant to try to take this stuff down.\u201d<\/p>\n
\n\tThe comment sent the internet ablaze, and could surely make good South Park <\/em>fodder.\u00a0<\/p>\n \n\tAccording to five Trump administration officials and others close to the president, Johnson\u2019s \u201cinformant\u201d claim on Friday night sparked widespread confusion within the ranks of Trump\u2019s government, with several senior officials blindsided or just completely perplexed by what the Trump-aligned House speaker could have possibly meant.<\/p>\n \n\tFor some in the administration, the confusion spilled over into Saturday, with some officials still unsure about whether Johnson was citing some explosive, unheard-of insider information, or if he misspoke or was freelancing extemporaneously.<\/p>\n \n\t\u201cWhat the hell is he doing?\u201d one senior Trump administration appointee told Rolling Stone<\/em>, after being asked about the Johnson \u201cinformant\u201d comment.<\/p>\n \n\tOther Trump advisers say it\u2019s their understanding that Johnson was referencing past claims made in the media about Trump; however, these claims did not amount to the idea he was a federal \u201cinformant.\u201d<\/p>\n \t\tEditor\u2019s picks<\/p>\n<\/h2>\n \n\tFBI officials, including deputy director Dan Bongino, did not reply to Rolling Stone<\/em>\u2019s inquiries on Saturday about whether or not their boss Trump was a snitch for the feds. Trump has yet to comment on Johnson\u2019s claim.<\/p>\n \n\tJohnson\u2019s remarks come as survivors of sex offender Epstein teamed with lawmakers to\u00a0 pressure Trump\u2019s Justice Department to release more information. On Wednesday, Rep. Ro Khanna (D-Calif.) said, \u201cLess than one percent of those files have been released.\u201d\u00a0<\/p>\n \t\tTrending Stories<\/p>\n<\/h2>\n \n\tTrump had promised to release the so-called Epstein files during his 2024 campaign, and his administration appeared ready to try to score points with the MAGA base on the topic. In July, though, the Justice Department backtracked, issuing a memo asserting that Epstein died by suicide and that his long-awaited \u201cclient list\u201d doesn\u2019t exist.\u00a0<\/p>\n \n\tKhanna along with 212 Democrats and four Republicans are pulling for the Epstein Files Transparency Act, a discharge petition that calls on the DOJ to release all unclassified records related to Epstein and Ghislaine Maxwell, Epstein\u2019s accomplice who was sentenced to 20 years in prison for sex trafficking. Meanwhile, Republicans are calling on their ranks to support the efforts of the House Oversight and Government Reform Committee. The committee released 33,000 documents with no apparent revelations on Tuesday.<\/p>\n Survivors are compiling a list of Epstein\u2019s associates based on their own stories while the Trump administration continues to assert that an Epstein client list does not exist.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" Trump administration officials are perplexed, as many people are, by House Speaker Mike Johnson\u2019s claims that Donald Trump was an FBI informant in the case against Jeffrey Epstein, who died by suicide in 2019 while awaiting trial on charges he sexually abused and trafficked scores of underage girls. The president and Epstein had a well-documented<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":19585,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[54],"tags":[3287,12005,2502,671,12006,11303,81,2168],"class_list":{"0":"post-19584","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-entertainment","8":"tag-claim","9":"tag-confused","10":"tag-fbi","11":"tag-house","12":"tag-snitch","13":"tag-speakers","14":"tag-trump","15":"tag-white"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/naijaglobalnews.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/19584","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/naijaglobalnews.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/naijaglobalnews.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/naijaglobalnews.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/naijaglobalnews.org\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=19584"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/naijaglobalnews.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/19584\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/naijaglobalnews.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/media\/19585"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/naijaglobalnews.org\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=19584"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/naijaglobalnews.org\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=19584"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/naijaglobalnews.org\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=19584"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}\n
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