JD Vance Claims Trump Administration Is 'Guilty' of 'Mishandling the Epstein Files'
JD Vance admitted mistakes were made in the release of the Epstein files.
July 15 2026, Published 7:30 p.m. ET
Vice President JD Vance confessed the Donald Trump administration "mishandled" the release of the Epstein files, RadarOnline.com can reveal.
On a Wednesday, July 15, installment of the Joe Rogan Experience, the VP, 40, detailed how he believes the situation could have been handled more effectively.
JD Vance Speaks Out on Epstein Files Release
Vance appeared on 'The Joe Rogan Experience' podcast on July 15.
"If people want to say we mishandled the Epstein release, guilty," he told host Joe Rogan. "We did mishandle it, especially the communications of it."
"I think we should have just dropped everything at the very beginning and, like I was saying, it takes a little time to review the stuff, to find the stuff, to redact things where you have victims and so forth, but we should have just done it as quickly as possible," Vance added.
Names were redacted in the release of the Epstein files.
Rogan then pointed out that there was also controversy surrounding the redactions themselves.
As Radar previously reported, some alleged victims' names were exposed while other co-conspirators' names and potential associates of Epstein were redacted, sparking backlash over the handling of the files.
However, Vance had a partial explanation.
"I’ve looked into this and my understanding of this, having looked at a lot of this but not all of it, is that it is sometimes hard to draw a distinction between victim and co-conspirator," he explained.
Donald Trump signed the Epstein Files Transparency Act to release the documents.
Vance suggested that some victims may have been labeled as co-conspirators as they allegedly assisted Epstein in procuring other victims.
"What DOJ tried to do is make that judgment as best they could and release as much as possible," he claimed.
He also confessed that he believes there is a "broader conspiracy" involving Epstein, and that he would go to his "deathbed believing there is a story there," but he couldn't "prove it" with the information he had.
"And I promise you there’s not some document, at least that I’m hiding, that allows us to prove exactly what was going on and how," Vance told Rogan.
J.D. Vance Admits to Being Epstein 'Conspiracy Theorist'
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Vance spoke out about the Epstein files on 'The View.'
During his June 16 appearance on The View, Vance admitted he was "frankly kind of a conspiracy theorist on the Epstein stuff."
"I think that it’s crazy that you had this guy, a s-- predator, who was hanging out with a lot of very wealthy and powerful people, that really bothered me," he told the panel of co-hosts.
While Vance conceded that "nobody knows exactly what happened" unless they were there for the things that allegedly happened, he still hoped for "full transparency" surrounding the situation.
He further claimed that Trump, 80, had been "very frustrated" by Democrats and the theories that he was allegedly involved.
"The president was frustrated about that, absolutely," he said at the time. "But eventually, ‘You know what? Let’s just get everything out there. Let’s have this out in the public.’ And he actually called the senators. I was there. He called the senators and said, ‘You know what? Pass this bill, I’ll sign it.'"
