JD Vance Used to Post About Jeffrey Epstein's Client List — He Stopped After Becoming the VP
"If you’re a journalist and you’re not asking questions about this case you should be ashamed of yourself."
Published July 8 2025, 4:56 p.m. ET
In August 2017, author Michael Wolff spoke with Jeffrey Epstein about President Donald Trump. According to The Daily Beast, Epstein said he was the president's "closest friend" and, as such, had intimate knowledge of Trump's sexual tastes.
The late financier claimed he and the president were pals for about a decade. They were so close that Epstein alleged the first time the president was intimate with Melania occurred on his private jet.
In 2002, President Trump was interviewed for a profile on Epstein in New York Magazine. He told the outlet the two of them had been friends for 15 years and, like him, Epstein liked beautiful women, many of whom are on the "younger side."
After Trump became president, he distanced himself from Epstein, who was arrested in July 2019.
Despite his best efforts, the internet never lies. Vice President JD Vance's tweets about Epstein are coming back to haunt his boss. Here's what we know.
JD Vance tweets about Jeffrey Epstein are making the president look bad.
Much has happened within the first six months of President Trump's second term, including an obsession with the Epstein files. Attorney General Pam Bondi and the Department of Homeland Security declassified and released a portion of the files relating to the Epstein case in February 2025.
"This Department of Justice is following through on President Trump’s commitment to transparency and lifting the veil on the disgusting actions of Jeffrey Epstein and his co-conspirators," she said.
This act was met with backlash from Trump supporters who quickly realized the information in these documents was already made available to the public. AG Bondi accused FBI director Kash Patel of not providing all the documents.
Around this time, AG Bondi told Fox News that the list of Epstein's clients was sitting on her desk, per CNN. A few months later, White House Press Secretary Karoline Leavitt said there was no client list, adding that Bondi meant the whole file.
The second Trump administration is determined to exorcise the idea of an Epstein client list from the minds of the American people. Unfortunately, one of those Americans is Vice President JD Vance, who in December 2021 took to X to ask, "What possible interest would the US government have in keeping Epstein’s clients secret?"
In a second post, he wrote, "If you’re a journalist and you’re not asking questions about this case you should be ashamed of yourself."
Ghislane Maxwell had a little black book.
When Vice President Vance posted about Epstein's client list being kept secret, he did so while sharing a story from The Times about Epstein associate Ghislaine Maxwell. In the piece, we learn that Maxwell struck a deal to keep her "little black book" out of the public domain.
The 97-page book containing the names and contact information of nearly 2,000 people, including "world leaders, celebrities and businessmen, was published by Gawker in 2015, with some redactions."
The original piece died when the outlet did in 2016. In July 2025, the Justice Department released a memo stating there was "no incriminating 'client list.'"