Gavin Newsom has posted an altered video clip of President Donald Trump to blast the administration over its handling of the Epstein Files.
California’s Democratic governor used real footage from Trump’s recent White House meeting with oil industry executives. During the East Room sit-down, the president abruptly stood up to gaze from a window and observe the progress on his $400 million ballroom. “Wow, what a view,” he said.
However, instead of showing the construction work on the other side of the window, Newsom superimposed footage of Trump and Jeffrey Epstein partying at Mar-a-Lago in 1992.
“PAM BONDI, RELEASE THE FILES!” Newsom captioned the post.
The Department of Justice has yet to release the vast majority of its files on Epstein, who died in prison in 2019 while awaiting trial on sex trafficking charges.
Following the passage of the Epstein Files Transparency Act, signed into law by Trump late last year, the DOJ was required to release all its files on the deceased sex offender by December 19.
The department, under the direction of Attorney General Bondi, has since published thousands of heavily-redacted documents on Epstein, including some which mention Trump and other high-profile individuals, such as former President Bill Clinton and former Treasury Secretary Larry Summers (An individual’s appearance in the files is not evidence of wrongdoing).
As of January 5, more than 99 percent of the files remain unpublished.
Bondi said that over the next few weeks, hundreds of DOJ attorneys will work to review and publish the remaining files in order to comply with the law.
Since the deadline to publish all the files passed, the Trump administration has undertaken a flurry of high-profile actions. These include capturing deposed Venezuelan leader Nicolás Maduro in a surprise military operation, threatening to invade Greenland and launching an unprecedented criminal investigation into Federal Reserve Chairman Jerome Powell.
Critics have accused Trump of deploying these tactics to shift focus from the Epstein controversy, which dominated the news cycle for much of last year.
Newsom has repeatedly taken to social media — often mimicking the president’s trademark all-caps and meme-heavy style — to remind Americans of the scandal surrounding Epstein.
In recent weeks, Newsom has posted multiple times about Trump and Epstein, who were friends for years before they had a falling out in the early 2000s, Trump has said. The president has not been accused of wrongdoing.
“Why isn’t the Trump admin prioritizing transparency and accountability around sex trafficking of minors?” Newsom, viewed by many as a top contender for the Democratic presidential nomination in 2028, wrote on X last week.
Trump has labeled the Epstein controversy a “hoax” perpetuated by Democrats and has maintained that he did nothing wrong.
The president has described Newsom, whom he derisively calls “Newscum,” as “incompetent” and accused him of allowing widespread fraud to take place in California.
