Trump won’t recommend a special prosecutor in Epstein case, Leavitt says |DD
Trump won’t recommend a special prosecutor in Epstein case, Leavitt says
Trump supporters have expressed frustration over the administration’s decision not to release additional information regarding the disgraced financier’s death.
Reporters raise their hands to ask questions as White House press secretary Karoline Leavitt speaks in the James Brady Press Briefing Room at the White House, Thursday, July 17, 2025, in Washington. | Alex Brandon/AP
By Cheyanne M. Daniels07/17/2025 02:27 PM EDT
Updated: 07/17/2025 03:22 PM EDT
White House press secretary Karoline Leavitt on Thursday said President Donald Trump would not recommend a special prosecutor in the Jeffrey Epstein case, despite Republicans’ growing frustration around the administration’s handling of the investigation.
Leavitt said, however, that Trump has called for Attorney General Pam Bondi, the Department of Justice and the FBI to “put forward” any additional “credible evidence in regards to Jeffrey Epstein’s crimes.”
“The president would not recommend [a] special prosecutor in the Epstein case. That’s how he feels,” Leavitt told reporters in the White House briefing room.
Though the Justice Department and FBI concluded earlier this month that there was no evidence that Epstein had a list of clients or was murdered in his jail cell, Trump supporters have continued to express frustration over the administration’s decision not to release additional information regarding the disgraced financier’s death.
Leavitt said that if Bondi releases additional information on Epstein, she does not believe the president would need to approve the decision. She added that she wasn’t aware whether Trump had further knowledge of what was in any unreleased Epstein documents.
Still, Trump is facing pressure from some of his top congressional allies, including House Speaker Mike Johnson, who called for the documents to be released in the name of “transparency.”
Leavitt said she would not comment on Trump’s private conversations with Johnson but stressed that the president has been transparent throughout the entire ordeal.
“The president has been transparent and followed through on his promises to the American people. But what he doesn’t like to see is Democrats and the mainstream media covering this like it is the biggest story that the American people care about,” she said.
Conservative activist and staunch Trump ally Laura Loomer told POLITICO that a special prosecutor should be assigned “so that people can feel like this issue is being investigated, and perhaps take it out of [AG Pam Bondi’s] hands, because I don’t think that she has been transparent or done a good job handling this issue.” Colorado Republican Rep. Lauren Boebert also called for a special counsel if the administration didn’t release more documents.
Trump has been urging his supporters to move on from the Epstein case, and on Wednesday lashed out at his backers, accusing them of playing into Democrats’ hands. The president added that he does not need the support of anyone still focused on the Epstein files.
The Democrats’ “new SCAM is what we will forever call the Jeffrey Epstein Hoax, and my PAST supporters have bought into this bullshit,’ hook, line, and sinker,” Trump posted on his Truth Social account on Wednesday. “Let these weaklings continue forward and do the Democrats’ work, don’t even think about talking of our incredible and unprecedented success, because I don’t want their support anymore!”
When asked what “hoax” Trump was referring to, Leavitt on Thursday said he was referring to any Democrats that have “now seized on this as if they ever wanted transparency when it comes to Jeffrey Epstein.”
“The Democrats had control of this building, the White House for four years, and they didn’t do a dang thing when it came to transparency in regards to Jeffrey Epstein and his heinous crimes,” she said. “It was this president who directed the Department of Justice and the attorney general to do an exhaustive review of all files related to Jeffrey Epstein, which they did.”
But some Republicans and Trump allies have warned that the issue “is not going to go away.”
Reps. Thomas Massie (R-Ky.) and Ro Khanna (D-Calif.) on Tuesday launched a “discharge petition” to force a House vote to publicize any Epstein-related records. One MAGA influencer, Liz Wheeler, said Bondi had become a “liability” for the administration. And even Trump’s former adviser, Elon Musk, condemned the administration’s refusal to release more information.
“Over 1000 confirmed young victims is a shockingly large and tragic number! In order for the government to confirm that the girls were victimized, they would have had to name or at least describe who raped them,” Musk posted Wednesday on X. “This would necessarily mean that the government MUST have the list of rapists aka ‘the Epstein client list’ in their possession right fucking now!”
