How do you like that headline, Chris?
That’s what you do: drop a bombshell allegation, bring in a Trump-hating Democrat to push it further, slip in a quick “not verified” disclaimer, then immediately treat it as real and devastating—because the smear sticks no matter what the facts say.
On last night’s episode of All In with Chris Hayes on MS NOW, host Chris Hayes brought on California Democratic Rep. Ted Lieu—a staunch Trump critic—who accused Attorney General Pam Bondi of withholding Epstein-related documents that supposedly contain allegations of Donald Trump sexually assaulting a underage girl.
These recycled smears against President Trump, which Lieu and Hayes amplify to paint him as complicit in Epstein’s crimes while accusing Bondi of a criminal cover-up through perjury and withholding files, trace back to unverified claims timed suspiciously around elections.
The core allegation traces back to the 2016 “Katie Johnson” lawsuit—filed anonymously in the months before the election and alleging rape at age 13 in 1994—but it was dismissed or withdrawn without evidence, and fact-checkers like Snopes and Lead Stories have flagged it as an old, uncorroborated claim surrounded by major red flags, including inconsistencies, lack of corroboration, and promotion by figures with histories of manufacturing salacious stories.
Recent Epstein file releases under the Transparency Act (signed by Trump in 2025) resurfaced similar unproven tips, including a 2019 FBI interview with a woman alleging assault in the 1980s when she was 13–15, often submitted anonymously to FBI hotlines right before the 2020 and 2024 elections, as the DOJ noted many were “sensationalist” and politically motivated.
While Democrats now allege the DOJ withheld ~50+ pages of related interview summaries (citing evidence log gaps), the department released over 3.5 million pages in compliance, with standard exceptions for privacy, duplicates, or ongoing probes—no credible evidence of crimes has emerged.
Chris Hayes said:
“Yeah I mean, we we, you know, there’s a document, again, it’s on the website that the FBI prepared as part of a sort of PowerPoint presentation, I think in 2025 as they were essentially, you know, calling through all this, it was sort of, I don’t know who it was briefed to, that has a bullet point that involves this allegation. It says, you know, it redacts the name. This person said that Donald Trump sexually assaulted her when she was thirteen. That’s what the document says. That’s, you know, that’s accessible to everyone, that’s online, that’s in the files that were given. You know, again, that does not mean at all that allegation is true, that it’s verified or corroborated in any way. But it does exist in that FBI file that is online. Like clearly that is true.”
Hayes immediately follows his own disclaimer—that the allegation isn’t verified or proven true—with “Like clearly that is true,” referring only to the document’s existence.
In other words, he treats the mere presence of an unverified claim in government paperwork as inherently meaningful, even while conceding it may be false.
This highlights the hypocrisy: Hayes admits the allegation isn’t verified or true, yet insists its existence proves Bondi lied by stating there was no “evidence” of crimes—blurring raw allegations with actual proof.
But the facts demolish this narrative—Trump has been exonerated repeatedly with no charges, no credible proof, and no substantiated links to Epstein’s crimes.
He banned Epstein from Mar-a-Lago after Epstein harassed a member’s teenage daughter, cooperated with victims’ lawyers in 2009 to provide information against him, and signed the Epstein Files Transparency Act in 2025 to mandate the release of millions of pages—hardly the actions of someone guilty or hiding something.
Donald Trump is not a child molester like the fake news and Democrats want you to believe.
His life has been filled with relationships with adult women—models, celebrities, beauty queens—not underage girls. The record shows him distancing himself from Epstein precisely because of inappropriate behavior toward young women, not engaging in it.
This is pure partisan desperation: Democratic lawmakers and their media allies weaponizing anonymous, unproven tips to smear Trump.
Watch on YouTube
**Sources:**
– [Politico: Woman suing Trump over alleged teen rape drops suit, again (2016)](https://www.politico.com/story/2016/11/donald-trump-rape-lawsuit-dropped-230770)
– [Fact Check: Anonymous Did NOT Expose New Documents About A Lawsuit Accusing Donald Trump Of Rape – The Documents For Case 1:16-cv-04642 Are Old And Publicly Available](https://leadstories.com/hoax-alert/2020/06/fact-check-anonymous-did-not-expose-new-documents-about-a-lawsuit-accusing-donald-trump-of-rape-the-documents-for-case-1-16-cv-04642-are-old-and-publicly-available.html)
– [Snopes: What We Know About Origins of Trump Child Rape Allegations](https://www.snopes.com/news/2024/09/03/trump-epstein-katie-johnson)