Activists in London put up a photo of President Donald Trump and the late financier and sex offender Jeffrey Epstein near the U.S. embassy after it was announced that Trump and First Lady Melania Trump will make a state visit to Britain in September.
Newsweek reached out to the White House for comment via email on Thursday.
The Context
Buckingham Palace announced earlier this week that Trump will make a state visit to the U.K. from September 17 to September 19, making him the first U.S. president to make two state visits to its ally across the Atlantic.
The announcement of the Trumps’ upcoming state visit came as the White House is grappling with a firestorm of blowback from the president’s base over its handling of the investigation into Epstein’s death and whether the disgraced businessman had a “client list.”
Thomas Krych/AP
What To Know
The anti-Trump Instagram account “Everyone Hates Elon” started a fundraiser to raise money to put up photos of Trump and Epstein together all over the U.K. as the president prepares to make an unprecedented second state visit to the country.
The Instagram account, which has more than 80,000 followers, also posted a video to its page early Thursday that appeared to show someone putting up the photo of Trump and Epstein near the Nine Elms London Underground station. The station is about a nine-minute walk from the U.S. embassy in London.
“It would be such a shame for Donald if this photo of Trump with Jeffrey Epstein appeared absolutely EVERYWHERE on his tour of the UK,” the “Everyone Hates Elon” Instagram account said in a caption accompanying the video. “It would truly be such a huge shame if everyone donated to make that happen.”
Newsweek reached out to the account via direct message for comment on Thursday.
As of Thursday evening, the post has nearly 230,000 likes and 54 comments.
The account’s fundraiser has raked in more than £6,100 ($8,193 USD) from 358 donations as of Thursday evening, out of an overall fundraising goal of £10,000 ($13,432 USD). According to the fundraiser’s page on the website Crowdfunder, the organizers are accepting donations until September 10 at 1:45 p.m. The Everyone Hates Elon group will keep all the money it raises, the page says.
Thursday’s fundraiser capitalizes on the blowback Trump has gotten from his core supporters after the U.S. Department of Justice put out a memo last week confirming earlier findings that Epstein was not murdered and died by suicide in 2019 in his Manhattan jail cell.
It also said the government was not in possession of a client list. Last week’s memo threw a wrench into years of conspiracy theories spread by Trump’s MAGA base—and amplified by some administration officials—alleging that Epstein was murdered and that his death was covered up by the government.
The uproar from MAGA infuriated the president, who called his supporters “weaklings” who got “duped” by the Epstein “hoax,” which he falsely claimed was started by Democrats. He later softened his tone and said he would be in favor of the DOJ releasing “credible” evidence related to Epstein but urged his base to move on from the controversy.
White House press secretary Karoline Leavitt was also peppered with questions about the Trump administration’s flip-flopping on the Epstein files, with Attorney General Pam Bondi saying in February that the documents were “sitting on my desk” waiting to be reviewed and suggesting the FBI was in possession of “thousands” of hours of incriminating footage of Epstein, to saying last week that the DOJ would have no more to say on the matter.
“Can you clarify which part of the Epstein ‘hoax’ is the ‘hoax’ part?” Fox News‘ Jacqui Heinrich asked Leavitt at Thursday’s press briefing.
“The fact that Democrats have now seized on this, as if they ever wanted transparency when it comes to Jeffrey Epstein,” Leavitt said, adding that the party controlled the White House for four years and “didn’t do a dang thing when it came to transparency in regards to Jeffrey Epstein and his heinous crimes.”
This is a breaking news story. Updates to follow.