Sen. Lisa Murkowski (R-Alaska) on Wednesday said Director of National Intelligence Tulsi Gabbard’s claims that former President Barack Obama’s administration orchestrated a “yearslong coup and treasonous conspiracy” to undermine Donald Trump seems to be part of an effort by the White House to sweep the Jeffrey Epstein controversy under the rug.
In an interview with CNN’s Kaitlan Collins, Murkowski said Gabbard’s actions suggest the Trump administration is “trying to deflect” from questions surrounding Epstein by resorting to “things that may be prior history.”
“Words like treason are big words, right?” Murkowski said.
“It does cause one to wonder if this is an effort by folks in the administration to have the conversation move on to something else, other than the Epstein matter, move on to something else, another, somebody other than President Trump so let’s go back to prior presidents,” she added.
Asked if she thinks Gabbard’s actions are a “distraction technique,” the Alaska senator replied: “Based on the timing of all of this, it does kind of cause you to question.”
Trump last week falsely claimed that he had no help from Russia in the 2016 presidential election, accusing Obama of the “highest level Election Fraud.” His baseless accusations were echoed by Gabbard, who sought to rewrite history by releasing a document that she said undercut the intelligence community’s claim that the Kremlin wanted Trump to win the 2016 race.
Both special counsel Robert Mueller and the Republican-led Senate Intelligence Committee had concluded that Russia actively worked to help Trump win.
Meanwhile, Murkowski urged Trump to release all files related to Epstein to put the issue behind him once and for all.
“Just be done with it. Be done with it,” she said. “If, in fact, there’s no there there for the president, get it out there. Just get it out there and be done.”
The controversy has been heating up in recent weeks following the release of a memo by the FBI and the Justice Department earlier this month asserting there was no evidence to suggest Epstein’s death wasn’t a suicide or that he held a client list to blackmail people. The document directly undercut Attorney General Pam Bondi’s comments to Fox News in February that Epstein’s client list was “sitting on my desk right now to review.”
Trump’s efforts to diffuse interest into the story, soliciting the help of GOP House Speaker Mike Johnson (R-La.), have been fruitless against an onslaught of reports prompting renewed scrutiny into his ties to Epstein, who died in federal prison one month after being arrested on charges of sex trafficking minors in 2019, during Trump’s first term in office.
The Wall Street Journal on Wednesday reported that Bondi told Trump in May that his name was in the Epstein files multiple times. The fact that Trump was named in the files does not suggest he committed any wrongdoing, the Journal noted. Trump’s team dismissed the story as “fake news.”
The outlet had previously reported the president had written a “bawdy” letter to Epstein in 2003 as part of a surprise for the disgraced financier’s 50th birthday put together by his girlfriend Ghislaine Maxwell. Trump sued the paper for libel over the report, which he described as untruthful.
CNN this week also released photos showing Epstein attending Trump’s wedding to Marla Maples as well as video showing the two men appearing at a Victoria’s Secret fashion event in 1999.