Vance, on 'The View,' appears to acknowledge Situation Room meetings on Epstein files
The vice president said he was a "conspiracy theorist" on Epstein.
Vice President JD Vance, during an appearance on ABC's "The View" on Tuesday, responded to New York Times reporting that he and other top advisers to President Donald Trump gathered in the Situation Room to discuss the crisis surrounding the Jeffrey Epstein files.
Vance appeared to acknowledge the Situation Room meetings in response to a question from co-host Sonny Hostin about why the administration has not released the estimated remaining 2.5 million Epstein files.
"That was one thing that we confronted, you talk about these Situation Room meetings, is there was a big bunch of files that existed, I think in the Southern District of New York or maybe it was, it was some other jurisdiction, but we were like, we want to release these files, but you need the court approval in order to release the files," Vance said.
The New York Times reported that Vance appeared "panicked" to others in the Situation Room about how the Epstein files were dividing the MAGA base and that he was privately pressing for the administration to release all the files.
Vance did not elaborate further on the Situation Room meetings in his appearance on "The View."
"Well, here's what I'll say," Vance said in response to the New York Times report. "So, number one, I am frankly kind of a conspiracy [theorist] on the Epstein stuff, and that story says that. That’s one of the things that's true, is that some people called me a conspiracy [theorist] on the Epstein stuff."
Vance added, "Because I think that it's crazy that you had this guy who is clearly a sex predator, who was hanging out with a lot of very wealthy and powerful people, like that really bothered me. I don't know what's there, of course. Nobody knows exactly what happened unless you were there, but that really bothered me. And I wanted to have full transparency. What I disagree with is the idea that the White House wasn't committed to full transparency."
Vance repeatedly said Trump cut off ties to Epstein and reported him to authorities.
A former police chief who investigated Epstein in the mid-2000s told the FBI he had received a call from Trump at the time to say "thank goodness you’re stopping him, everyone has known he’s been doing this," according to an FBI account of an interview with the former police chief in 2019. The alleged call from Trump came in July 2006, around the time the details of the police investigation became public, according to a source familiar with the timing. There is no other record of Trump aiding law enforcement in their investigations.
Epstein, a convicted sex offender, died by suicide in 2019 while awaiting trial on federal sex trafficking charges.
The only other person to have been criminally charged in the U.S. other than Epstein was his longtime associate, Ghislaine Maxwell. Maxwell was convicted of sex trafficking and other charges in connection with Epstein in 2022 and sentenced to 20 years in prison.
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