‘I never said that it was that Jeffrey Epstein,’ Crockett said before accusing Republicans of peddling lies
Rep. Jasmine Crockett (D., Texas) said she “was not attempting to mislead anybody” when she blasted Republicans from the House floor for accepting donations from people who share Jeffrey Epstein’s name but are not the convicted pedophile.
“I never said that it was that Jeffrey Epstein,” Crockett told CNN’s Kaitlan Collins on a Wednesday episode of The Source. “So my team, what they did is they Googled, and that is specifically why I said ‘a Jeffrey Epstein.'”
During a Tuesday speech on the House floor, Crockett alleged Federal Election Commission (FEC) filings showed Republicans, such as Environmental Protection Agency administrator Lee Zeldin and former senator Mitt Romney, “took money from somebody named Jeffrey Epstein.” But those same filings also showed the donations didn’t come from the alleged sex trafficker—rather they were contributions from people who shared the same name, the Washington Free Beacon reported.
“I was not attempting to mislead anybody,” Crockett told Collins. “I literally had maybe 20 minutes before I had to do that debate.”
Collins pushed back: “People might see that and say, ‘Well, you’re trying to make it sound like he took money from a registered sex offender.'” She added, “Someone might say, ‘Well your team should have done the homework.'”
“But I literally did not know,” Crockett replied. “Within 20 minutes, you could not find that out, not from just doing a quick search on FEC.”
A single click on any given contribution from a Jeffrey Epstein would have provided additional information, including their hometown, occupation, and middle initial, showing the donors in question were not the convicted pedophile. Even if Crockett’s team didn’t have time for that due diligence, the FEC page listing donors’ names shows the year they gave money, which in the case of Zeldin, was after Epstein died.
Still, Crockett on Wednesday said Republicans were the ones fabricating information.
“Unlike Republicans, I at least don’t go out and just tell lies,” she told Collins.
That comment is particularly noteworthy given that when Crockett called out the phony Epstein donations, she was defending U.S. Virgin Islands delegate Stacey Plaskett (D.), a former prosecutor who is facing scrutiny for texting the pedophile during a 2019 congressional hearing and accepting political contributions from him. Plaskett argued Epstein was a constituent (his infamous island was in her district) and said she didn’t know about his misdeeds—though she was in fact made aware as early as October 2016.
Crockett continued her defense Wednesday.
“What I know of prosecutors is that they are typically talking to co-defendants, they are typically talking to the people that have the best information,” Crockett said before pivoting to talk about President Donald Trump. “Stacey didn’t initiate that chain. Jeffrey initiated that chain, and she took the information.”
Collins inquired if it was appropriate for Plaskett to ask for Epstein’s help during the hearing.
“I’m not going to say that that’s right or wrong,” Crockett replied. “Were they sexting? Was it a matter of her being involved in the pedophilia? No, it was nothing like that.”
