February 10, 2026
Now reports claim Trump thanked a former Florida police chief for stopping Epstein and his heinous crimes.
Hours after Ghislaine Maxwell, the former girlfriend of convicted sex offender Jeffrey Epstein, shockingly exercised her Fifth Amendment rights before answering questions from U.S. House lawmakers, video of House Speaker Mike Johnson labeling President Donald Trump as an FBI informant resurfaced.
Things took a turn Feb. 9 when Maxwell said she could exonerate Trump and former President Bill Clinton of any wrongdoing — but not without full clemency first, NPR reports. As the shockwaves started to take over social media, so did dated videos of lawmakers claiming the President had nothing to do with Epstein, but was more of an informant of the FBI.
“He’s not saying that what Epstein did is a hoax; it’s a terrible, unspeakable evil. He believes that himself,” Johnson rambled in 2025.
“When he first heard the rumor, he kicked him out of Mar-A-Lago. He was an FBI informant to try to take this stuff down. The President knows and has great sympathy for the women who suffered these unspeakable harms. It’s detestable to him.”
However, Trump has been heard several times calling the federal probe a “hoax by the Democrats.”
After Johnson’s words created a new narrative that Trump may be a “rat,” the Louisiana Republican lawmaker recanted his words, saying “informant” may not have been the best choice of words.
“I don’t know if I used the right word. I said FBI informant. I’m not sure — I wasn’t there. This isn’t my lane,” Johnson told reporters, according to PBS News. “I’m just repeating what is common knowledge and has been out in the public for a long time: President Trump was never a hindrance to the Epstein investigation. He was trying to assist in that.”
The narrative is quite confusing. For months, lawmakers and advocates have pushed evidence that the President had a close-knit relationship with the disgraced financier, sparking calls for him to be charged with a crime. Former Rep. Marjorie Taylor Greene even resigned after the Epstein Files — that the Department of Justice once claimed did not exist — were heavily redacted.
Now, former Palm Beach, Florida, Police Chief Michael Reiter, who allegedly investigated Epstein in the early 2000s, revealed to the FBI during a 2019 interview that Trump once called him to say “thank goodness” someone was “stopping him” since “everyone has known he’s been doing this.”
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