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Sep 13, 2025 02:52 PM EDT, Sat

In Epstein case, Mike Johnson backs off claim that Trump was an FBI ‘informant’

When the House speaker claimed that the president was an FBI “informant” in the Epstein case, it raised some awkward questions. Then he walked it back.

Sept. 8, 2025, 11:05 AM EDT By Steve Benen

In some fringe circles, there are still some who believe that Donald Trump is secretly a hero in the case against Jeffrey Epstein. As these conspiracy theorists see it, the president worked quietly with law enforcement behind the scenes to bring his former friend to justice — but the Republican is simply too modest to brag about it.

These foolish claims have never made any sense, which made it rather surprising when House Speaker Mike Johnson (T-LA4) told reporters on Capitol Hill last week — out loud, on the record and on camera — that Trump was “an FBI informant” in the case against Epstein.

The comment raised more questions than answers. If Trump was an informant for federal law enforcement, what precipitated such an arrangement? If the president worked with the FBI to help, in Johnson’s words, “take down” a sex trafficking ring, why has this been kept secret?

Similarly, two days after the Louisiana congressman made the comment, Thomas Massie (T-KY4) appeared on ABC News’ “This Week” and asked, “If [the Epstein scandal is] a ‘hoax,’ why was Donald Trump an informant to a hoax?”

A few hours later, The Washington Post reported:

House Speaker Mike Johnson (T-LA4) on Sunday backed off his claim that President Donald Trump was an FBI informant in the case of sex offender Jeffrey Epstein. … On Sunday, his office released a statement modifying that claim.

“The Speaker is reiterating what the victims’ attorney said, which is that Donald Trump — who kicked Epstein out of Mar-a-Lago — was the only one more than a decade ago willing to help prosecutors expose Epstein for being a disgusting child predator,” the statement from Johnson’s office read.

Of course, there’s a big difference between working as an FBI “informant” and being “willing” to assist with an investigation, although the clarification might need additional clarifying, since it remains an open question how, when and whether the president actually tried to “help prosecutors.”

As for the bigger picture, a bill called the Epstein Files Transparency Act, which would compel the administration to disclose more documents related to the Epstein case, is still pending on Capitol Hill. Johnson has refused to bring the bill to the floor, but a discharge petition, championed by Massie and Ro Khanna (D-CA17), is still seeking signatories.

As of last week, the measure was still a handful of GOP members short of its goal. Watch this space.

Steve Benen is a producer for “The Rachel Maddow Show,” the editor of MaddowBlog and an MSNBC political contributor. He’s also the bestselling author of “Ministry of Truth: Democracy, Reality, and the Republicans’ War on the Recent Past.”

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