Former Fox News host Bill O'Reilly was quickly fact-checked after he claimed that the trial of the late financier, pedophile, and sex trafficker Jeffrey Epstein happened under former Attorney General Merrick Garland during the Biden administration.
O'Reilly made the claim while appearing on News Nation, repeating President Donald Trump's talking points that Democrats bear responsibility for not releasing the infamous "Epstein files," which are said to contain detailed lists of some of Epstein's most high-profile enablers.
Trump himself is widely believed to be in the Epstein files and has repudiated calls by his followers to release them, admonishing critics of his Attorney General Pam Bondi, who recently concluded no such list exists, despite claiming the exact opposite just months ago.
Speaking to host Leland Vittert, O'Reilly said:
"The Biden administration had exactly the same thing the Trump administration has on Epstein because Epstein was convicted during the Biden administration. Not one time did [House Minority Leader] Hakeem Jeffries call for any exposition of what the Biden Justice Department knew. Not once."
"This guy's a top phony, a political phony, he doesn't care about the truth—"
Vittert cut him off:
"Hold on, Bill. You said Epstein was convicted during the Biden administration. Epstein committed suicide during the Trump administration."
O'Reilly responded:
"Yeah, so?"
You can watch their exchange in the video below.
After Vittert questioned "how you can convict a guy who's dead?," O'Reilly asked if he is "wrong" to say that Epstein was convicted under Merrick Garland, who was not Attorney General until 2021, two years after Epstein's suicide during the Trump administration.
Vittert nodded, to which O'Reilly replied:
"I don't think so. Then he was incarcerated and committed suicide. Okay, the suicide thing is bull."
But Vittert fact-checked him again:
"Bill, I think this is important. He was arrested in 2019 and he committed suicide in 2019. He died August 10 of 2019, so the Biden administration was not involved in a conviction or a trial. They were [in the case of] his madame, Ghislaine Maxwell."
O'Reilly continued to lie:
"That's a good point of clarification but he was arrested and indicted under Merrick Garland who had all the information."
But Vittert was firm:
"No, it was Trump, under Trump. Epstein was arrested, indicted, and committed suicide under Trump in 2019. Trump was president. Merrick Garland was not the Attorney General."
You can watch their exchange in the video below.
O'Reilly was harshly criticized.
Trump has since directed Bondi to release whatever she finds "credible" in the Epstein files amid the backlash from his supporters. However, he dismissed the files as a "hoax" in a lengthy Truth Social post, claiming that "my PAST supporters have bought into this ‘bulls**t’ hook, line, and sinker" despite spending years promoting conspiracy theories about the files.
Trump claimed he has "had more success in 6 months than perhaps any President in our Country’s history, and all these people want to talk about, with strong prodding by the Fake News and the success starved Dems, is the Jeffrey Epstein Hoax."
He further admonished his supporters, calling them "weaklings [who] continue forward and do the Democrats work, don’t even think about talking of our incredible and unprecedented success, because I don’t want their support anymore."
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