Kari Lake Slams Lack of Jeffrey Epstein Indictments Compared to Trump

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Giulia Carbonaro is a Newsweek reporter based in London, U.K. Her focus is on the U.S. economy, housing market, property insurance market, local and national politics. She has previously extensively covered U.S. and European politics. Giulia joined Newsweek in 2022 from CGTN Europe and had previously worked at the European Central Bank. She is a graduate in Broadcast Journalism from Nottingham Trent University and holds a Bachelor's degree in Politics and International Relations from Università degli Studi di Cagliari, Italy. She speaks English, Italian, and a little French and Spanish. You can get in touch with Giulia by emailing: g.carbonaro@newsweek.com.

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In the wake of the fourth indictment to hit Donald Trump this year, MAGA loyalist Kari Lake compared the efforts made to prosecute the former president to a lack of action against the late New York financier and sex offender Jeffrey Epstein's clients.

On Monday, Trump was among a total of 19 defendants indicted by an Atlanta grand jury in Georgia with a slew of crimes—including racketeering, perjury, forgery, false statements, violating the oath of a public officer, and other offenses—aimed at overturning the result of the 2020 presidential election in the state.

The former president and current favorite in polling for the Republican primary for 2024 has been charged with a total of four indictments this year. These include a federal indictment linked to his efforts to retain power in 2020 and his involvement in the January 6 attack on the U.S. Capitol, a federal indictment linked to the mishandling of classified documents after leaving the White House, and a criminal indictment related to the payment of hush-money to adult film star Stormy Daniels ahead of the 2016 election.

Kari Lake
Kari Lake speaks to reporters at the Georgia state GOP convention, on June 10, 2023, in Columbus. Lake compared efforts made to prosecute Donald Trump to the lack of action taken against Jeffery Epstein. Anna Moneymaker/Getty Images

Trump has denied all allegations against him in the four cases.

Despite the series of indictments facing the former president, he remains far ahead of any other Republican candidates in the 2024 presidential election, according to the latest polling. FiveThirtyEight reports that as of August 14, Trump had 52.7 percent of the vote, while rival Ron DeSantis trailed him with 14.0 percent of the vote.

Lake, who is currently considering joining the 2024 Arizona Senate race after losing the state's latest gubernatorial election to Democrat Katie Hobbs, complained that the efforts made to prosecute Trump were too great compared to those made to punish Epstein for his crimes.

"It's been 3 years, almost to the day, since Jeffrey Epstein 'killed himself.' Not a single one of his clients has been indicted for heinous crimes against children," she wrote Tuesday on X, formerly Twitter. "Yet, President Trump was just indicted for the 4th time. Justice is dead in America."

Newsweek reached out to Lake's team via the form available on her website for comment on Tuesday.

It's unclear why Lake, a former TV anchor turned Republican firebrand who's always been loyal to Trump, would compare the former president's indictments to a convicted sex offender's. But it's not the first time that the failed Republican nominee brought up Epstein's case.

In August 2022, Lake wrote on X: "Is now a good time to remind everyone that Jeffrey Epstein's little black book of Elite Pedophiles has been buried and brushed away?"

In April 2023, she reshared an interview of Cindy McCain, the widow of Arizona Republican Senator John McCain, saying that "we all knew what he was doing" but people were afraid of Epstein.

"Cindy McCain admits that they knew what Jeffrey Epstein was doing but REFUSED to do anything because they were afraid of him. Her husband was one of the most powerful politicians in the world. What did HE have to be so afraid of?" Lake posted.

Earlier this year, the Daily Mail reported that the last court documents containing the names of 167 Epstein's associates were set to be released in the coming months. The New York Times and other newspapers obtain a list of names this month which did not contain explosive revelations as the ones suggested by Lake.

Epstein and his associates didn't go unpunished for their crimes. In July 2019, he was arrested on charges of sex trafficking and conspiracy to engage in sex trafficking, to which he pleaded not guilty. The indictment accused him of sexually exploiting and abusing "dozens of minor girls at his homes in Manhattan, New York, and Palm Beach, Florida, among other locations" over the course of many years.

He was denied bail ahead of the trial and died in jail on August 10 of an apparent suicide.

In July 2020, Epstein's longtime associate Ghislaine Maxwell was arrested and later sentenced to 20 years in prison after being found guilty of 5 out of 6 counts linked to sex trafficking charges.

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About the writer

Giulia Carbonaro is a Newsweek reporter based in London, U.K. Her focus is on the U.S. economy, housing market, property insurance market, local and national politics. She has previously extensively covered U.S. and European politics. Giulia joined Newsweek in 2022 from CGTN Europe and had previously worked at the European Central Bank. She is a graduate in Broadcast Journalism from Nottingham Trent University and holds a Bachelor's degree in Politics and International Relations from Università degli Studi di Cagliari, Italy. She speaks English, Italian, and a little French and Spanish. You can get in touch with Giulia by emailing: g.carbonaro@newsweek.com.

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Giulia Carbonaro is a Newsweek reporter based in London, U.K. Her focus is on the U.S. economy, housing market, property ... Read more