In case you missed it yesterday, Rep. Jasmine Crockett did her best to defend Stacey Plaskett, the Virgin Islands delegate who was caught texting with Jeffrey Epstein during a congressional hearing in 2019. Crockett decided the best defense was a good offense so she went to a podium on the House floor and listed off a bunch of Republicans "who also took money from somebody named Jeffrey Epstein." One of those people was EPA Administrator Lee Zeldin. Zeldin was quick to correct here error.
Yes Crockett, a physician named Dr. Jeffrey Epstein (who is a totally different person than the other Jeffrey Epstein) donated to a prior campaign of mine.
— Lee Zeldin (@LeeMZeldin) November 19, 2025
NO 👏 FREAKIN 👏 RELATION 👏 YOU 👏 GENIUS!!! https://t.co/gYQlcUd2we
The same was true of nearly everyone else Crockett mentioned. Lazio, Romney and McCain also took money from Jeffrey Epstein the doctor, not the creepy perv.
The only question was whether or not Crockett had known she was lying when she said all this in the first place. Here's what I said yesterday:
Is she really this dumb and careless with the facts or is she just a shameless liar? Notice how she phrased this revelation. She didn't say it was Jeffrey Epstein, she said it was "somebody named" Jeffrey Epstein, almost as if she knew it wasn't the Jeffrey Epstein everyone had in mind. So you have to at least consider shameless liar as a strong possibility here.
Well, Crockett went on CNN and got a chance to clarify her statement. And, wow, this clip does not disappoint. This is one of the most convoluted attempts to crawl out from under a blatant lie you may ever see. Let's trudge through this.
"Listen, I never said that it was that Jeffrey Epstein," Crockett said. In other words, she misled people but left herself an out.
"Just so that people understand, when you make a donation, your picture is not there," she said.
She's referring to the website where you can look up people's donations. And yes, it's true that it doesn't include photos. But it does include other information including the state from which the donation was made and the person's job. In other words, it's pretty easy to tell that Jeffrey Epstein, financier from Florida, is not the same guy as Jeffrey Epstein, doctor from Long Island, New York.
But she kept going.
"And because they decided to spring this on us in real time, I wanted the Republicans to think about what could potentially happen because I knew that they didn't even try to go through the FEC. So my team, what they did is they Googled. And that is specifically why I said 'a Jeffrey Epstein.'
Say what now? Her team Googled, I get that. But how does she know Republicans hadn't also Googled? She makes it sound like this just became a story yesterday. But Crockett herself has been talking about Epstein for months. This topic was the opposite of a surprise.
What did she want Republicans to think about exactly? What was it that "could potentially happen?" Was it that someone could get up and lie about political donations to intentionally mislead people? That's what happened and it doesn't seem to have worked out too badly for Lee Zeldin.
But she's not done yet. In fact, it gets even better. Take a breath and get ready for the final turn.
"I at least don't go out and just tell lies. Because it was not the same one, that's fine. But when Lee Zeldin had something to say, all he had to say was 'it was a different Jeffrey Epstein.'"
She tried to intentionally mislead people and just admitted she knew or at least had a hunch it wasn't the same guy. Also, Lee Zeldin did say it was a different Jeffrey Epstein. His exact words (see above) were "a totally different person than the other Jeffrey Epstein."
She's still not done. Having said she didn't lie she now wants to claim she didn't mislead people either:
"He admitted he did received donations from a Jeffrey Epstein, so at least I wasn't trying to mislead people. Now have I dug in to find out who this doctor is, I have not. So I will trust and take what he says, is that it wasn't that Jeffrey Epstein, but I was not attempting to mislead anybody. I literally had maybe 20 minutes before I had to do that debate."
She had 20 minutes plus the past four months that she's been talking about the Epstein files. She's been making this an attack line against Trump since July.
Also, if she really wasn't trying to mislead anyone, why not just admit that she didn't know if the Jeffrey Epstein she was referencing was the Jeffrey Epstein. She clearly had doubts or she wouldn't have phrased it the way she did. So why not just be honest and admit you didn't know instead of trying to create a viral moment full of false claims?
Kaitlan Collins wasn't buying it and pushed back a bit. Crockett then said, "I did not know. I literally did not know."
Again, why not say that? How hard would it be to say, 'I don't know if it's the same guy.'
I think we all know why she didn't say that. She wanted the intentionally misleading claims she was making about Republicans to go viral. And they did, just not in the way she hoped.
After that the conversation moved on to Crockett defending Stacey Plaskett and saying if Republicans can text with Trump, Democrats can text Epstein. This performance should haunt her for the rest of her career. Drag this out every single time she lies or misleads people. My guess is you won't have to wait long for that to happen. Here's the full exchange.
Rep. Jasmine Crockett responds to Lee Zeldin saying he never took donations from that Jeffrey Epstein — but instead a physician who is also named Jeffrey Epstein — following her comments on the floor. pic.twitter.com/ReN4IbTW6K
— Kaitlan Collins (@kaitlancollins) November 20, 2025
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