Mike Johnson claimed that Donald Trump was "an FBI informant to try and take this stuff down [Epstein]", before retracting his statement.
His declaration
Mike Johnson, a Republican representing Louisiana and the Speaker of the House, backtracked on his bold statement claiming that Donald Trump appeared in the Epstein files because he would have been an "FBI informant" in the case.
An informant?
While before the media on Capitol Hill, Mike Johnson asserted that Donald Trump would have been "an FBI informant to try and take this stuff down [Epstein]," implying by his propositions that Trump had cooperated with the FBI, taking an active role in the investigation against Epstein.
Trump's past
These statements relayed certain conspiracy theories about Trump's past with Epstein, particularly around the period when they drifted apart. According to these theories, Trump stayed close to Epstein in order to gather information with the aim of bringing him down.
His words
A few days later, a memo from Johnson's office corrected his remarks, denying that he had claimed Trump was an FBI informant.
The memo
The memo stated that the Speaker of the House was really only echoing the words of the victims' lawyer, Brad Edwards, that Trump had been the only one, more than a decade ago, to agree to help prosecutors against Epstein.
The questions
This confusion only heightens questions about why Trump and his administration are suddenly opposed to the release of all files related to Jeffrey Epstein, when they have spent years campaigning among their supporters for the Epstein files to be posted.