Did Donald Trump Inform on Jeffrey Epstein?

“He was an FBI informant to try to take this stuff down” — Mike Johnson

Gage Skidmore from Surprise, AZ, United States of AmericaGage Skidmore, CC BY-SA 2.5 https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/2.5, via Wikimedia Commons

Until recently, Donald Trump has never had any use for snitches, informants, or rats, whichever term you prefer. Here are some quotes of his on the subject over the years.

“Michael Cohen only became a ‘Rat’ after the FBI broke into his offices.”

“You don’t call the FBI. You throw somebody out of your office.”

Trump worried about rats in his White House and businesses.

“Be careful what you say on the phone!”

“Who’s wearing a wire?”

His close associates expressed his fears.

“Trumpworld smells a rat.”

“He has asked me and others, ‘Do you think our phones are tapped?’”

Trump has always been a wannabe mobster, adopting the attitudes and lingo of the mobsters, some of whom he had relationships with.

• In the early 1980s, Trump purchased concrete from S&A Concrete, a company controlled by Anthony “Fat Tony” Salerno (Genovese family) and Paul Castellano (Gambino family).
• This concrete was used in major Trump projects like Trump Tower and Trump Plaza, bypassing unionized labor and traditional suppliers.
• Trump’s longtime attorney, Roy Cohn, represented several mob figures and was deeply embedded in New York’s criminal underworld.
• Cohn’s clients included members of the Genovese crime family, and he helped Trump navigate labor unions and regulatory hurdles that were often mob-influenced.

It’s likely Trump’s “friends” wouldn’t have taken kindly to Trump providing information to the FBI on any subject. Yet, House Speaker Mike Johnson claims that’s precisely what he did—dropping a dime on Jeffrey Epstein about Epstein’s activities. Epstein himself believed Trump was the rat who informed on him to the FBI, leading to his 2006 arrest and sentencing for offenses involving underage girls, according to Trump biographer Michael Wolff.

It’s unlikely that Trump had an ethical crisis about his good friend Epstein and his fondness for young girls. Trump had a longtime and overlapping friendship with another pedophile, John Casablancas, one of the owners of Elite Model Management. Trump and Casablancas hosted private parties featuring models ranging in age from 20. At one event, the models danced on tables where the pair looked up the skirts of the models. Trump would judge and comment on the women’s genitals. Casablancas’s activities were well known, but it wasn’t Trump snitching that brought him down. It was an exposé by the BBC that told the world of his predilection for young girls. After Casablancas was forced out of Elite Model Management, Trump formed Trump Model Management to continue being in the company of young girls.

Donald Trump and His Other Pedophile Good Friend | by William Spivey | The Polis | Sep, 2025 | Medium

If Trump ratted out Jeffrey Epstein, it was more likely about a piece of property than a moral crisis. In 2004, the two men fell out over what Epstein alleged to be a money laundering scheme involving a Florida property, Trump, and a Russian oligarch. Trump outbid Epstein for the property, not without running the price up, costing Trump millions. A few weeks later, someone Epstein believed to be Trump told the FBI about the young girls often seen coming and leaving Epstein’s Palm Beach estate.

Maybe Trump was a rat, like Mike Johnson says, but it had nothing to do with protecting young women. It was revenge for costing Trump money, something Trump could never forgive. As for the property, Trump purchased the Palm Beach mansion for $41 million in 2024. He sold it to Russian oligarch Dmitry Rybolovlev for $95 million, setting a record for the area. There could be something to the money laundering scheme after all.

Is Donald Trump a rat like Mike Johnson claims? He probably is, only the sense of the word is in question. That Mike Johnson thinks Trump snitching is a good thing might be true if done for another purpose. Trump did it in revenge for having to pay more for a property. He did it for spite and deserves no glory now. Of course, Mike Johnson, Trump’s surrogate protector of the Epstein files, deserved no credit either.