Former Vice President Mike Pence has joined calls for the Trump administration to release all files related to the Jeffrey Epstein sex trafficking investigation, saying anyone associated with the late sex offender “ought to be held up to public scrutiny.”
“I think the time has come for the administration to release all of the files regarding Jeffrey Epstein’s investigation and prosecution,” Trump’s former VP said in an interview Wednesday with CBS News’ Major Garrett.
Pence repeatedly stressed that any victim names listed in the files should be excluded from public release, “but whether or not the facts justify charges, I think that anyone who participated or was associated with this despicable man ought to be held up to public scrutiny.”
“I just think that we ought to get the facts to the American people. I’ve always believed in transparency,” he added.
Pence’s response follows Trump calling the Epstein investigation “a hoax” and instructing his supporters to drop all interest in the case, reasoning that parts of the investigative files had been “made up” by his political opponents and that what is out there is “pretty boring stuff.”
Trump’s former pal, Elon Musk, publicly claimed last month that Trump’s name is in the files and that’s the “real reason they have not been made public.”
Trump and Epstein had been photographed together on a number of occasions in the 1990s and early 2000s, with both men frequenting New York and Palm Beach, Florida. Epstein called Trump his “closest friend for 10 years” in a 2017 interview with reporter Michael Wolff, while painting Trump as a philanderer who enjoyed having sex with his friends’ wives.
Trump has more recently said that he “wasn’t a fan” of Epstein and that they had a falling out years ago. His distance follows the former financier being charged with sex trafficking of minors in 2019.
Trump’s sudden insistence for the public to move on from the case comes after the Department of Justice and FBI released a memo last week stating that video footage confirms reports that Epstein died by suicide while behind bars ― contrasting claims by conspiracy theorists who suspect he was murdered to guarantee his silence. The DOJ and FBI also said Epstein did not maintain a “client list” containing names of his associates who participated in underage sex trafficking.
The DOJ’s denial of such a list comes despite Trump’s attorney general, Pam Bondi, publicly claiming in February that she had Epstein’s client list on her desk, ready for her review under Trump’s orders.
A federal prosecutor who worked on the Epstein and Ghislaine Maxwell case was abruptly fired by the DOJ on Wednesday, according to multiple reports. Maxwell was Epstein’s former girlfriend and associate, who was found guilty of child sex trafficking in 2021.