House Speaker Mike Johnson ignited a political firestorm on Friday, September 5, 2025, when he publicly claimed that former President Donald Trump had acted as an FBI informant to help bring down Jeffrey Epstein, the disgraced financier whose alleged sex trafficking network has haunted American politics for years. Johnson’s assertion, made while defending Trump’s recent characterization of the Epstein saga as a “hoax,” immediately sent shockwaves through Washington and left both Trump’s allies and adversaries scrambling for answers.
Speaking to reporters at the Capitol, Johnson insisted that Trump’s use of the word “hoax” was not intended to minimize Epstein’s crimes, but rather to criticize Democratic efforts to politically link Trump to the Epstein scandal. “He was an FBI informant to try to take this stuff down,” Johnson said, as reported by Live Now Fox. “The president knows, and has great sympathy for the women who suffered these unspeakable harms. It’s detestable to him.”
Johnson’s comments came just two days after Trump had told reporters he wanted to focus on “the greatness of our country” rather than “the Epstein hoax.” According to Johnson, Trump’s remarks were aimed at what he saw as partisan attacks, not at denying the gravity of Epstein’s offenses. Johnson also noted that Trump had expelled Epstein from his Mar-a-Lago resort after hearing rumors about Epstein’s predatory activities, a claim that has circulated in the media for years.
The Speaker’s statement marked the first time any official had publicly suggested Trump had acted as an FBI informant in the Epstein case. The White House did not immediately respond to Johnson’s claim. But the assertion quickly set off a frenzy within Trump’s own circles, with Rolling Stone reporting that several senior Trump administration officials were blindsided and confused by Johnson’s remarks. “What the hell is he doing?” one senior Trump appointee reportedly asked, reflecting the widespread bewilderment among Trump’s advisers.
Some in Trump’s orbit speculated that Johnson might have been referencing past media reports about Trump’s cooperation with investigators. Survivors’ lawyer Brad Edwards, speaking at a press conference on September 3, 2025, recounted his own experience with Trump during the early stages of the Epstein investigation. “I talked to President Trump back in 2009 and several times after that. He didn’t think that it was a hoax then. In fact, he helped me. He got on the phone, he told me things that were helping our investigation. Now, our investigation wasn’t looking into him, but he was helping us then. He didn’t treat this as a hoax,” Edwards said. Despite this cooperation, Edwards noted that Trump did not provide a deposition and managed the information he shared.
The timing of Trump’s break with Epstein has long been a subject of intrigue. According to reporting from Rolling Stone and other outlets, Trump and Epstein’s relationship soured in the early 2000s after Epstein allegedly “stole” spa workers from Mar-a-Lago, including, by Trump’s own admission, possibly Virginia Giuffre—one of Epstein’s most prominent accusers. Trump described the split in characteristically blunt terms: “He stole people that worked for me. I said, don’t ever do that again. He did it again. And I threw him out of the place. Persona non grata. I threw him out. And that was it.” When pressed by reporters if these workers included young women, Trump replied, “Well, I don’t wanna say, but everyone knows the people that were taken. It was, the concept of taking people that work for me is bad. But that story’s been pretty well out there. And the answer is, yes, they were.”
By 2007, Mar-a-Lago staff had confirmed to Page Six that Epstein had been banned from the club, citing his attempts to “procure girls” from the resort’s spa. “He would use the spa to try to procure girls. But one of them, a masseuse about 18 years old, he tried to get her to do things,” a source told the outlet. “Her father found out about it and went absolutely ape-[bleep]. Epstein’s not allowed back.”
Adding another layer of complexity to the story is the real estate feud that unfolded between Trump and Epstein in 2004. Trump purchased a South Florida estate for $41 million, outbidding Epstein, and later flipped it for $95 million to Russian oligarch Dmitry Rybolovlev. Epstein reportedly suspected the deal was a front for money laundering—a suspicion that led to threats of lawsuits against Trump. The timing of these events coincided with the opening of two grand juries in Palm Beach investigating Epstein-related allegations, the first in early 2005 and the second in 2007. The connection between these legal proceedings and the Trump-Epstein fallout remains murky, but the overlap has fueled speculation for years.
Meanwhile, the debate over transparency in the Epstein case has reached a fever pitch. On September 3, 2025, a bipartisan group of lawmakers joined ten Epstein victims at a press conference demanding Congress vote on legislation requiring the release of all Justice Department files related to Epstein. Johnson now faces mounting pressure from both sides of the aisle to allow a floor vote on the transparency bill, which seeks to shed light on the full extent of Epstein’s network and those who enabled him.
The push for disclosure comes as new details emerge about financial transactions involving Epstein and his alleged co-conspirators. In late 2018, shortly after the Miami Herald published a bombshell series on Epstein’s abuses and the controversial 2007 non-prosecution agreement, financial records revealed that Epstein wired $100,000 and $250,000 to individuals protected by that agreement. The Department of Justice recently notified these individuals about a motion to unseal related documents, and their legal representatives have opposed the move, citing privacy and sensitive personal matters.
Attorney General Pam Bondi reportedly informed Trump that his name appears multiple times in Epstein case documents, though the Trump administration continues to deny the existence of any “client list.” The lack of transparency and ongoing efforts to keep certain records sealed have only intensified calls for accountability. Survivors and their advocates argue that the world deserves to know not just the extent of Epstein’s crimes, but also who may have protected him and who else should be investigated.
With the House Speaker’s stunning claim still reverberating and bipartisan momentum building for a full accounting of the Epstein scandal, the political stakes are higher than ever. As Congress prepares to debate the transparency bill and the public demands answers, the tangled web of relationships, rivalries, and secrets surrounding Trump, Epstein, and their associates continues to unravel—one revelation at a time.
