FBI Informant, My Ass

Speaker Johnson’s absurd claim that Trump was one of the good guys trying to take Epstein down highlights Trump’s desperation.

There’s a popular meme going around, and it nails the absurdity of the evolving Trump/Epstein narrative coming out of the GOP and the White House.

That final “full clown” line comes from last Thursday, when Speaker Mike Johnson dropped a doozy by claiming to a reporter that Trump was an FBI informant.

No really, he did.

To get a grasp on what is going on, we need to go back through a bit of Trump/Epstein history I covered in an earlier piece and mark some dates. From there we can put together a plausible reason Johnson might have floated this patently absurd idea that Trump was an “FBI informant.”

But first, let’s review what Johnson said, and how he’s since walked it back.

Trump was “an FBI informant” trying “to take this stuff down.” Yeah, right.

Speaker Johnson made the claim that Trump was an FBI informant within the context of Johnson attempting to sane-wash Trump’s prior claims that the Epstein files were a Democratic hoax.

“I’ve talked to him about this many times, many times. He is horrified. It’s been misrepresented. What Trump is referring to is the hoax that the Democrats are using to try to attack him,” Johnson said.

Never mind that Trump claimed in writing in several online posts that the the Epstein files were a Democratic hoax perpetrated by President Obama, Hillary Clinton and FBI Director Comey.

But wait, Johnson explained, “He is not saying what Epstein did is a hoax. It’s a terrible, unspeakable evil, and he believes that himself. When he first heard the rumor, he kicked him out of Mar-a-Lago.”

Only that last bit is not true at all either, according to club records. And it doesn’t even align with the reason Trump gave for their falling out. Per The Daily Beast,

The president told reporters that he cut ties with Epstein after the pedophile “stole” female workers from his exclusive Florida members club

The timeline of events undermines this claim, because Epstein was still a member of Mar-a-Lago as of 2007:

[T]he revelation that Epstein was allegedly still a member of the club seven years after Epstein poached Virginia Giuffre from the spa at Mar-a-Lago in 2000 raises questions over Trump’s version of events.

As for the idea that Trump kicked Epstein out of Mar-a-Lago right after learning of “the rumor” about him, recall that Trump spoke to a reporter from The New Yorker in 2002, telling him in a booming voice over the speakerphone, “I’ve known Jeff for fifteen years. Terrific guy. He’s a lot of fun to be with. It is even said that he likes beautiful women as much as I do, and many of them are on the younger side. No doubt about it — Jeffrey enjoys his social life.” (Emphasis added.)

Trump had certainly “heard the rumor”—but he praised Epstein for it rather than distance himself.

Johnson then continued his defense of Trump, claiming next that he “was an FBI informant to try to take this stuff down.”

Record scratch moment. What in the world?

Speaker Johnson had been chattering nonstop, indicating a high level of anxiety and stress around the subject of Epstein. I had to listen to the clip several times because I couldn’t believe he’d actually said those words.

The remark “sent the internet ablaze and could surely make good South Park fodder,” remarked Rolling Stone, further reporting,

According to five Trump administration officials and others close to the president, Johnson’s “informant” claim on Thursday sparked widespread confusion within the ranks of Trump’s government, with several senior officials blindsided or just completely perplexed by what the Trump-aligned House speaker could have possibly meant.

For 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.

Over the weekend, Johnson walked back his claim, with his office releasing a milquetoast statement:

The Speaker is reiterating what the victims’ attorney said, which is that Donald Trump — who kicked Epstein out of Mar-a-Lago — was the only one more than a decade ago willing to help prosecutors expose Epstein for being a disgusting child predator.

Never mind that Johnson had made it clear he was talking about what Trump had told him because he’d “talked to him about this many times, many times.” Far more likely is that someone ultimately decided this FBI informant explanation, much as Trump may like it, was a bridge too far.

In every Trumpian lie, a kernel of truth

The Trump White House continues to have a big problem. The Epstein files, along with numerous public records, place Trump in many pictures and videos with Epstein.

There are alleged victims of Epstein who have also publicly named Trump, and as Pam Bondi told Trump back in May, the Epstein files themselves—including possibly as-yet-unreleased videos—contain his name and maybe even his image. The FBI has been busy going through the files, compiling and noting all instances where Trump’s name appears.

So how do you explain this potentially damning evidence away? Oooh, I know! Let’s suggest that Trump was there as one of the good guys! He wasn’t raping girls; he was trying to take Epstein down. In fact, he was spying on Epstein the whole time!

Trump may have told Johnson some version of this nonsense, and Johnson then repeated it, thinking this was the new game plan. But then after it landed with a thud, the White House and the Speaker probably realized how silly that explanation sounded. So Johnson walked it back, and now the new narrative is that Trump was the “only one” who tried to “help prosecutors expose Epstein” and his crimes.

To understand this claim, which again tries to paint Trump as a good guy rather than a monster, we need to go back to what was really going on between Trump and Epstein in the 2000s.

So did Trump really turn Epstein in? If so, why?

It might actually be true that Trump went to the authorities about Epstein’s sex crimes—only not for the altruistic reasons Johnson suggests.

According to Trump’s biographer Michael Wolff, and as I wrote about earlier, Epstein believed Trump betrayed him after winning a bidding war for a Palm Beach mansion they’d both wanted:

In 2004, Epstein believed himself to be the high bidder on a piece of real estate in Palm Beach—a house. His bid was $36 million. He took his friend Trump around to see the house, to advise him on how to move the swimming pool. Trump thereupon went around Epstein’s back and bid $40 million for the house—and got the property. Epstein, who was well acquainted and in fact deeply involved with Trump’s scattered finances, understood that he didn’t have $40 million to pay for this house.

That sounds a lot like illegal Russian money laundering, and Epstein made no secret he thought so too:

If that was the case, it was someone else’s $40 million. At the time, Epstein believed this to be the $40 million of a Russian oligarch by the name of Rybolovlev. Less than two years later, this same house that Trump had bought for $40 million was sold for $95 million—and it was in fact sold to Rybolovlev. This is all a red flag of money laundering. Epstein after this began to threaten lawsuits and going to the press saying that Trump was a frontman for a money laundering deal.

When Epstein alleged publicly that Trump was broke and had bought the house using Russian money, Trump retaliated, reporting Epstein’s sex crimes to the police.

Trump panics at this point, and Epstein believed that it was Trump who went to the police and, as Epstein said, dropped the dime on him - informed the police of what was going on. And an investigation began, and all of Epstein’s legal problems for the next 15 years began to unfold.”

But wait. Assuming it really was Trump who went to the cops about Epstein, how did Trump come to know about those crimes, and why was he so involved with Epstein that whole time?

That brings us back to Johnson’s doozy of an absurd explanation: that Trump was working for the Feds all along. But that would of course mean there must be people and records who could corroborate Trump’s status as an FBI informant, which there aren’t. And it would mean Trump was an informant for a Democratic hoax, which of course makes zero sense.

For the story to have morphed so far is a strong indication that Trump is desperate. He needs a plausible reason for why he appears in the Epstein files. People weren’t buying the “Democratic hoax” bit, and now they aren’t buying the ridiculous claim that he was one of the good guys and was spying on his pedophile buddy for the Feds.

When witnesses’ stories constantly evolve with each new disclosure, it’s a telltale sign they’re afraid of what the evidence and testimony of others will ultimately show. And that’s what’s very likely happening with the narrative here, which has now morphed again for the Epsteinth time.