“Morning Joe” host Joe Scarborough let some of his simmering frustrations over the Jeffrey Epstein scandal boil to the surface Tuesday and demanded that the U.S. government, “Release all the documents now!”
Scarborough reflected on the open-secret nature of Epstein’s crimes in the years leading up to his death in 2019. “I read about people continuing friendships with him right up until he was arrested, and there were a lot of them,” Scarborough noted, adding that he heard rumors in 2015 and 2016 that Epstein had been close to both Bill Clinton and President Donald Trump.
“I was confounded by the fact that this child predator was roaming around outside of jail,” Scarborough explained. “People who are now saying, ‘Oh, well, I was shocked and stunned and deeply saddened when I [found out],’ No. No! This was out there. It was available for everybody to know since 2006 that this guy was a child predator.” As Scarborough continued to torch the public and behind-the-scenes protections that Epstein received for years, he turned his attention to the convicted sex trafficker’s many victims.
“If I’m asking it, a lug-head on cable news [who] had no idea what had gone on before, what about these women that were carrying this?” Scarborough remarked. The “Morning Joe” host referenced the controversial plea deal Epstein received in 2008, which was approved by then-U.S. attorney Alex Acosta, who was later appointed the U.S. Secretary of Labor by President Trump in 2017.
The deal allowed Epstein to plead guilty to a single charge of solicitation and only serve 13 months in prison — with extensive work release accommodations.
“[Epstein’s survivors] saw a sweetheart deal that was done by a future Secretary of Labor, saw him be able, after doing unspeakable things to these young girls, to go to work in Palm Beach, then go back and hang out in his jail cell, then go back out to work,” Scarborough recapped. “It’s been one sweetheart deal after another.”
“Since his death, it’s been one powerful group of people after another covering up the truth from the American people,” Scarborough continued. “Release all the documents and let the American people finally see what the real story is about Jeffrey Epstein [and this] extraordinarily powerful group of men — business leaders, academics, politicians — who were around him.”
The “Morning Joe” host noted that he does not know what is actually in the government’s Epstein documents, but that does not make him any less passionate about their release. “For the survivors, for those who say they’re survivors, release all the documents!” Scarborough said. “I’m not being glib here. I really don’t know who could be against that, unless you’re in those documents and you’re guilty.”
It was not just the Trump administration that earned Scarborough’s ire Tuesday morning, either. “When Democrats come on this show or any other show screaming and yelling, ‘The documents must be released now,’ that does beg the question, ‘Where were you from ’21 to January of ’25 when the Biden administration ran the Justice Department?’” Scarborough remarked.
“Did you go on any shows screaming for the release then? Where were you?” the “Morning Joe” host concluded. “Please, you just sit back, buddy, and let’s let people that have consistently called for the release of the documents talk about it.”
You can watch the full “Morning Joe” segment yourself in the video above.
