Vice President JD Vance appeared to confirm that he and other top Trump administration advisers met in the White House Situation Room to discuss the crisis surrounding the Jeffrey Epstein files. The acknowledgment came during a Tuesday appearance on ABC's "The View."
Co-host Sonny Hostin asked Vance why the administration had not released the estimated 2.5 million Epstein files still believed to be outstanding. Vance responded by describing what those meetings involved, according to ABC News.
"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.
He did not elaborate further on what took place in those meetings. The New York Times had previously reported that Vance appeared "panicked" to others in the Situation Room about how the Epstein files were dividing the MAGA base, and that he had been privately pressing for full release of the files.
Vance pushed back on the characterization that the White House had been reluctant to be open about the matter. He described himself in terms that matched how others in the room had reportedly described him.
"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 said.
He went on to explain why the case concerned him. "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 added.
Vance also repeatedly stated during the appearance that President Trump had cut off ties with Epstein and reported him to authorities. ABC News reported that a former police chief who investigated Epstein in the mid-2000s told the FBI he received a call from Trump at the time in which Trump said "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 conducted in 2019. The alleged call came in July 2006, around the time details of the police investigation became public. ABC News noted there is no other record of Trump aiding law enforcement in their investigations into Epstein.
Epstein, a convicted sex offender, died by suicide in 2019 while awaiting trial on federal sex trafficking charges. His longtime associate, Ghislaine Maxwell, is the only other person to have been criminally charged in the United States in connection with the case. Maxwell was convicted of sex trafficking and other charges.
