Nikki Haley calls for release of Epstein files, counter to Trump
Nikki Haley is joining a chorus of critics calling on the Trump administration to release more information on convicted sex offender Jeffrey Epstein.
The former South Carolina governor posted on X Tuesday to call for the release of the “Epstein files” following days of controversy over the Justice Department’s handling of its investigative files on Epstein, a once high-profile financier who died in jail in 2019.
“Release the Epstein files and let the chips fall where they may,” Haley posted on the social media site. “This is why people don’t trust government. You can never go wrong with being transparent. Redact victims’ names but release the rest.”
U.S. Attorney General Pam Bondi had promised to release additional details from the Justice Department’s investigation into Epstein, who was accused of a series of sexual offenses against at least 36 women and girls as young as 14 years old. But the release last week failed to include a long-rumored “client list” of rich and powerful people who supposedly took part in Epstein’s crimes.
Federal investigators say no such list exists, but many online influencers, including those who have been supportive of President Donald Trump, have decried a cover-up. When one interviewer asked Bondi about the client list, she said she had it “sitting on [her] desk,” although the attorney general later said she had meant a file on the Epstein case broadly.
While the president has seemed eager to move on from Epstein, Haley has joined other prominent Republicans in calling for more on the case to be released.
House Speaker Mike Johnson told a podcaster on Tuesday that the Justice Department should release everything it has on Epstein. “We should put everything out there and let the people decide it,” Johnson said.
Trump declined to address the Epstein case when asked by a reporter at the White House, and later defended Bondi on social media, saying he didn’t want to waste time on Epstein, “somebody that nobody cares about.”
Conspiracy theories have circulated around the Epstein case since the financier’s death by hanging inside his New York jail cell while awaiting trial on federal sex trafficking charges. The phrase “Epstein didn’t kill himself” became a popular online meme as speculation spread about who else the well-connected Epstein might have involved in his sexual exploitation.
To date, no evidence of anyone else’s involvement in Epstein’s activities has been proved, except for the 2021 conviction on sex trafficking charges of socialite Ghislaine Maxwell for recruiting girls for Epstein.
Haley resigned as South Carolina’s governor in 2017 in order to serve as the U.S. ambassador to the United Nations during Trump’s first term, although she ran against Trump for the Republican presidential nomination in 2024.
Later on Tuesday, Haley posted her supporter for U.S. Rep. Ralph Norman, R-Rock Hill, for voting with Democrats in a congressional committee to move forward with a proposal to release files related to Epstein. That measure ultimately failed to pass the Republican-dominated House Rules Committee.
“Thankful for @RalphNorman for understanding the importance of transparency,” Haley wrote.
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