A majority of Americans believe that Donald Trump and his government are hiding information from the public about the late pedophile Jeffrey Epstein, according to a damning new poll.
A substantial 70 percent said they thought the Trump administration is trying to conceal who may have been involved in the disgraced financier’s child sex crimes—including 62 percent of Republicans, a Reuters/Ipsos survey found.
Of those surveyed, 62 percent, including 56 percent of Republicans, also believe the government is hiding information about Epstein’s death in a New York jail cell in 2019 while he was awaiting federal sex trafficking charges.
Conspiracy theories that Epstein may not have taken his own life have been rampant for years, partly because of Epstein’s network of rich and powerful friends, including Trump.
The president and Epstein were close for years, but are said to have fallen out around 2004 over a Palm Beach, Florida, real estate deal before Epstein was exposed as a child sex offender.
Trump has also claimed he cut ties with Epstein because the financier “stole” young workers from Mar-a-Lago, including Virginia Giuffre, a sex-trafficking victim of Epstein’s who died by suicide in April.
Trump has long denied that he was involved in, or even aware of, the sex-trafficking crimes carried out by Epstein and his longtime associate, Ghislaine Maxwell.
The devastating Reuters/Ipsos poll shows that only 18 percent of Americans— including 34 percent of Republicans—think it is likely that Trump did not know about Epstein’s crimes before they were made public.
Questions about Trump and Epstein’s relationship reignited in November after a trove of emails from the late pedophile was released by the House Oversight Committee. Among the documents was a January 2019 email Epstein sent to author Michael Wolff reading, “Of course [Trump] knew about the girls as he asked Ghislaine to stop.”
Trump has been engulfed in the saga surrounding Epstein after the Department of Justice and FBI announced in July that there is no evidence of a so-called “client list” featuring high-profile names linked to the late pedophile, and pulled back on the president’s own vow to release all the so-called “Epstein files.”
Last month, Congress passed a bill requiring the DOJ to release all documents from its long-running Epstein investigation by Dec. 19.
The Reuters/Ipsos survey showed 23 percent of Americans approve of Trump’s handling of the Epstein scandal, compared to 52 percent who disapprove.
One slightly positive for Trump, 53 percent of Republicans now approve of his handling of the Epstein issue, up nine percentage points from last month.
The Daily Beast has contacted the White House for comment.
The online poll of 4,434 U.S. adults was conducted Dec. 3 through Dec. 8.
