Speaking at a news conference last week, Rep. Ted Lieu, D-Torrance, told reporters it was time to give more coverage to the links between former President Donald Trump and convicted sex offender Jeffrey Epstein.
“Something I’ve heard that doesn’t seem to be being covered are the Epstein files. These files were released. And, like, Donald Trump is sort of all over this,” he said, continuing, “You all might want to look at that. Because that’s highly disturbing.”
Lieu’s remarks came a week after Florida Judge Luis Delgado unsealed grand jury testimony involving Epstein. Given Lieu’s position as a member of Congress and vice chair of the House Democratic caucus, one would expect Lieu to at least be careful in his remarks.
Alas, it didn’t take long for Lieu’s narrative to fall apart.
The next day, responding to similar criticism on Twitter that the media was overlooking links between Trump and Epstein in the latest release, longtime journalist Julie Brown made clear no such link was to be found in the grand jury testimony.
“The documents released last week provide no evidence that Trump was a co-conspirator of Epstein,” she wrote, explaining that this is “why no major media has reported it…If there was evidence in a file made public, trust me, the media would be all over it.”
Brown knows what she’s talking about. She wrote a bestselling book about the Epstein case (“Perversion of Justice: The Jeffrey Epstein Story Paperback”).
To make matters worse for Lieu, though, the Washington Post’s Glenn Kessler fact-checked Lieu’s remarks in a fair and direct manner.
His conclusion? “[No] credible allegation has emerged to connect Trump to any of Epstein’s crimes,” Kessler wrote. “Trump wasn’t mentioned in the latest batch of Epstein documents. He was barely mentioned in the earlier batches. Rest assured — if Trump were prominently mentioned, it would have been a huge story.” For this, Lieu’s remarks were granted “Four Pinocchios.”
Ted Lieu has a law degree, has worked as a law clerk, served on the Judge Advocate General’s Corps and even ran for California attorney general. He should know the importance of being factual and accurate in his words. His constituents deserve better.
