Davidoff Studios Photography / Getty Images
Some Joe Biden supporters are employing a tried-and-true strategy to fend off rampant debate over the President's age and mental acuity: deflection.
On social media — and even in the halls of Congress — certain Biden supporters are using Donald Trump's associations with disgraced financier Jeffrey Epstein as an argument to disqualify him.
Discourse about Trump and Epstein was reignited after documents from Epstein's first Florida investigation in 2006 were released last week.
But the 158-page document — a grand jury transcript showing prosecutors heard testimony that Epstein raped girls as young as 14, then still cut him a sweetheart plea deal — makes no mention of Trump himself.
Still, some seized the news cycle as a way to counteract doubts about Biden's own fitness to run for office in 2024.
During a press conference on Tuesday, Rep. Ted Lieu of California urged more media coverage of the "Epstein files," adding that a "highly disturbing" hashtag about Trump and Epstein was trending on X.
Trump had previously been photographed with Epstein, Lieu said, had flown with him on planes with young girls on board, and the two were listed on call logs together.
"It shows that Donald Trump is unfit for office," the congressman said, adding Trump was also convicted of sexual abuse in civil court.
Ben Meiselas, the cofounder of liberal news network Meidas Touch, also posted on X about "the release of new Epstein files with Trump's name on it." Other Biden boosters have suggested a coordinated media cover-up to boost Trump's chances or doom Biden's.
But Trump isn't named in the latest records, a fact reiterated on X by Julie Brown, the Miami Herald investigative journalist who helped break the Epstein story.
Media outlets haven't reported on Trump's connection to the new Epstein files because there isn't one.
Trump has appeared in previous unsealed and uncovered documents connected to the Epstein case.
Trump was also connected to 14 different numbers in Epstein's little black book of contacts that surfaced before the financier's arrest on sex trafficking charges in 2019. Among the contacts were Trump's wife, Melania; ex-wife, Ivana; and daughter, Ivanka.
The contact book also included the names of high-profile celebrities like Courtney Love, Alec Baldwin, and Naomi Campbell, as well as politicians and dignitaries like John Kerry, Michael Bloomberg, Henry Kissinger, and Prince Andrew.
Unsealed flight logs in 2019 revealed Trump took a flight on Epstein's private jet in 2017; billionaire couple Glenn and Eva Dubin joined him on the flight from Palm Beach to Newark.
And in January, a Business Insider analysis of then-unsealed court records determined Trump appeared in the documents multiple times under the moniker "Doe 174."
However, the mentions in those documents weren't all damning for the former President, BI's Jacob Shamsian reported at the time.
In one instance, a woman denied in a deposition that she'd massaged Trump. In another, a woman claimed — then recanted — that her friend had had sex with him. And Virginia Roberts Giuffre, one of the key accusers of sexual abuse by Epstein and his associates, said in one document that she didn't think Trump was involved.
Trump had previously faced allegations by an anonymous woman that claimed he had violently raped her at an orgy when she was 13 years old. The woman — who went by the pseudonym "Katie Johnson" — even filed a lawsuit against Trump, twice.
The first was a civil rights suit in April 2016 that was thrown out on a technicality. Vox noted that the original suit listed the woman's apparent address as an abandoned home.
She filed a second lawsuit that removed some of the lurid details. Still, the case was connected to strange characters, including a Jerry Springer producer who tried to sell a video of the purported accuser to news outlets for $1 million and an anti-Trump activist who promoted the lawsuit — and had a history of spreading untrue gossip.
The woman abruptly dropped the lawsuit in November 2016, just days before the election that Donald Trump would win. Her lawyer didn't share a reason for why the lawsuit was dropped at the time.
Trump had publicly praised Epstein before his sexual abuse allegations came to light. He called Epstein a "terrific guy" in 2002, adding, "It is even said that he likes beautiful women as much as I do, and many of them are on the younger side."
But the Washington Post reported the two men had a falling out in 2004 after they both wanted to buy a prime Palm Beach property.
After Epstein's arrest, Trump told reporters, "I was not a fan of his, that I can tell you." Trump has also said he barred Epstein from Mar-A-Lago.
