Vice President JD Vance stated the Trump administration “absolutely screwed up the comms” around the Jeffrey Epstein files and may have launched all the pieces instantly, whereas insisting the administration was not making an attempt to hide info.
“I say this with all candor, like we absolutely screwed up the comms of the Epstein files, like we just did,” Vance stated on “The Joe Rogan Experience” when requested whether or not there had been “undue influence” in making an attempt to maintain the files below wraps.
“But do I think the reason we screwed up the comms is because we were trying to hide something? No,” Vance stated within the podcast episode launched Wednesday.
Vance’s feedback come because the administration has been dogged by blowback from the president’s personal base over its dealing with of the Epstein files.
As for what went fallacious, the vice chairman pointed to then-Attorney General Pam Bondi’s public feedback suggesting a purported consumer checklist was on her desk, whereas he famous that the binders of knowledge handed out to right-wing social media influencers in February 2025 have been “largely documents that were already released.”
“I don’t know what the purpose of it was, but I know the effect of it was to make people mistrust the entire effort,” Vance stated, including that he didn’t suppose Bondi was doing “anything malicious.”
“I think Pam was trying to respond to the political moment. I think she overstated what we had and what we didn’t have, and I think she got roasted for it publicly by a lot of people, including me.”
The vice chairman reiterated that he’s “one of the OG Epstein conspiracy theorists,” saying, “I’ve probably gone down every single rabbit hole.” He argued the “original sin” of the Epstein investigation dated again to 2007 and 2008, arguing it was “way too narrow” and faulting former US Attorney Alex Acosta, who negotiated a controversial plea take care of Epstein.
“If there was a broader conspiracy — and you know my view is that there probably was — the evidence that existed in 2007, that was the opportunity to get it out,” Vance stated.
Asked about theories that Epstein might have been a part of Israel’s Mossad spy company, Vance stated, “Yeah, Mossad or CIA or some other deep state.”
“He clearly had connections to the upper, the highest levels of American intelligence. He clearly had connections to the highest levels of Israeli intelligence,” he added.
Vance additionally defended President Donald Trump’s function in releasing the Epstein files, rejecting claims that the president was pressured into doing so. Trump “could have killed” the congressional effort to compel the Justice Department to launch the files if he had needed to, Vance argued. (Trump and GOP leaders had labored furiously to attempt to quash the trouble to pressure the discharge of the files, earlier than Trump reversed course on the final minute.)
Still, Vance conceded that that it took longer than it ought to have for the administration to launch the files.
“If people want to say we mishandled the Epstein release, guilty. We did mishandle it, especially the communications of it,” he stated.
“I think that we should have just dropped everything at the very beginning,” he stated. “We should have just done it as quickly as possible.”