After the apparent suicide death of child sex trafficker Jeffrey Epstein while he was in federal custody, President Donald Trump jumped on the bandwagon of those pushing conspiracy theories surrounding the death with moves like a retweet of a post containing the hashtag “#ClintonBodyCount,” which carries the allegation that the Clintons were really behind Epstein’s demise. Now, current and former FBI agents have spoken out about the impact of the president’s actions, roundly condemning his belligerence and its potential to interfere with their ongoing investigation into the issue — and to even threaten the lives of Americans like the Clintons themselves and their supporters, since extremists lap up these theories as documented excuses for violence like has happened numerous times in recent years.
One anonymous currently serving agent told Business Insider:
‘The Epstein case was hypercharged from the get-go. The last thing investigators need is the president of the United States fanning the flames with these bullshit theories that have no basis in reality.’
Indeed — to be clear, there is not a shred of evidence suggesting that the Clintons have anything to do with Epstein’s death, although the higher-up implication associated with Trump’s claim to the contrary doesn’t even end there. Those in support of the theory also assert that the Clintons were involved in Epstein’s criminal activity, although there’s no apparent evidence at all of this either — but that hasn’t stopped the president of the United States from spouting this nonsense anyway.
During time on Sunday morning cable news this past weekend, longtime Trump adviser Kellyanne Conway repeatedly tried to dismiss the significance of the president’s behavior by saying he “just wants to see everything investigated.” That assertion implies, however, that there’s any investigative lead to pursue connecting the Clintons to Epstein’s death in the first place. There’s not — instead, this idea is a conspiracy theory with no basis in reality coming from the president of the United States. Recently retired FBI agent Frank Montoya, Jr. called it “crazy talk coming from no less than the President of the United States.”
He added:
‘This would be a bad TV melodrama if it weren’t real. The world is watching. Trump may be successfully fooling a third of America with his sociopathic antics, but everyone else… sees how naked the Emperor is, and they are exploiting the advantage.’
Going forward, the Justice Department has already announced its own investigation into Epstein’s death, but it would not be far-fetched to be concerned about the course of that probe considering Attorney General Bill Barr has already tilted another major probe (the Russia investigation) in Trump’s favor. In this case, would Barr’s team focus even somewhat on garnering political dirt on Trump’s opponents? Time will tell.
Epstein had been on suicide watch for at least part of his latest stay in federal prison, but he was taken off that some six days after a previous apparent attempt at killing himself. At the time of his death, he was reportedly “alone in his cell and was not monitored by guards who were supposed to check in on him every half hour,” both of whom in this case were apparently on overtime.
