Is Donald Trump all over Jeffrey Epstein documents released in Palm Beach Post suit?

Ted Lieu, a Democratic congressman from California, is scolding the media for not covering Donald Trump's connections to Jeffrey Epstein in the wake of the recent release of the 2006 secret grand jury documents that came as part of a lawsuit by The Palm Beach Post.

Is the presumptive Republican nominee all over those documents as is being bandied about on X, formerly Twitter? No, that simply isn't true.

Another former president, however, is mentioned very briefly, and that's Bill Clinton, but it wasn't in connection with Epstein. A prosecutor asked one victim about a comment on her MySpace page saying people could become famous if they did what Monica Lewinsky did to Clinton.

More: Jeffrey Epstein 2006 grand jury documents are public. Read for yourself what happened

"Something I've heard that doesn't seem to be getting covered is the Epstein files ... Donald Trump is all over this ... y'all might want to look at that," Lieu said.

Lieu, who has represented a California House district since 2014, has long been a critic of Trump and his allies.

In 2019, Lieu accused fellow Californian Devin Nunes, a former House Intelligence Committee chair and member of Trump's transition team, of conspiring with Boca Raton resident Lev Parnas to undermine U.S. interests abroad. Parnas was a key player in the effort to pressure Ukraine's president to announce a corruption investigation against Joe Biden before the 2020 election.

Nunes took issue with Lieu's comments and had his attorney send Lieu a letter threatening legal action against him for attempting to damage Nunes' reputation.

“I welcome any lawsuit from your client and look forward to taking discovery of Congressman Nunes,” he wrote in a letter that he posted on X, then called Twitter. “Or, you can take your letter and shove it.”

Ted Lieu helped prosecute second impeachment case against Trump

In 2021, he was picked by House Speaker Nancy Pelosi to serve as an impeachment manager, meaning he prosecuted the case against Trump in the U.S. Senate.

Trump was no longer in office, but the Democratic-led House nonetheless impeached him absentia in order, the chamber's leaders said, to hold him accountable for the violence at the U.S. Capitol on Jan. 6, 2021. Lieu, who was born in Taiwan, closed his remarks in the trial by pointing to what he said was Trump's utter lack of remorse about what happened that day.

"That’s why lack of remorse is an important factor in impeachment because impeachment, conviction and disqualification is not just about the past, it’s about the future," he said. "It’s making sure that no future official, no future president does the same exact thing President Trump does. President Trump’s lack of remorse shows that he will undoubtedly cause future harm if allowed because he still refuses to account for his previous high grave crime against our government."

No black book names involved in 2006 Epstein case

Trump has nothing to do with the early case against Epstein nor were any black book names. The 2006 case involved underage girls who attended Palm Beach County schools, chiefly Royal Palm Beach High.

Trump has said he cut ties with Epstein in about 2004, which was earlier than the investigation by the Palm Beach police in 2005. Trump was mentioned in documents released in January in a 2015 defamation lawsuit that survivor Virginia Giuffre filed against Ghislaine Maxwell.

Giuffre has said she didn't think Trump was involved in sexual abuse.

The Post's 2019 investigation: Jeffrey Epstein case, the first failure: To the first prosecutors, Epstein's victims were prostitutes

The transcripts of a 2006 grand jury proceeding were made public after sources told The Post in its 2019 investigation that then-State Attorney Barry Krischer sunk his own case in secret.

Krischer was the first prosecutor ever to consider criminal charges against Epstein. Instead of charging Epstein himself, Krischer took the matter to a secret grand jury. What emerged was a single felony solicitation of prostitution charge.

Prosecutors call both girls prostitutes in front of grand jury

Only two victims testified, one who was 14 when she was molested and another who was 16 or 17 when she'd been raped by a man in his 50s.

Prosecutors called both prostitutes, telling one girl, you know "you've committed a crime."

They focused on whether the girls had been truthful with Epstein about their ages despite the fact that state law — then and now — says that not knowing a child's age, thinking they're of age or being lied to about it are not defenses. That was never mentioned in front of the grand jury.

Prosecutors also hammered the girls about the money they received. After one described being raped by Epstein, prosecutors' next question was about how much he paid her.

‘Open secret’ at Royal Palm High: At least 15 students were lured to Jeffrey Epstein’s Palm Beach mansion

Palm Beach police had found nearly two dozen underage girls and young women who described sexual abuse at Epstein's mansion on the island. They recommended charges that could have put Epstein, in his early 50s at the time, in prison for life.

Krischer could have stopped Epstein in 2006, preventing the deal of the century and the 2019 sex trafficking case in New York. Epstein was found dead in his Manhattan jail cell less than a month after he was arrested that year.

The Post sued in 2019 to find out what happened in the secret grand jury proceedings on the basis of a tenet of Florida law that says grand jury material could be made public in "furtherance of justice." The documents were released on Monday, July 1.

Holly Baltz is the investigations editor at The Palm Beach Post. You can reach her at hbaltz@pbpost.com.

Antonio Fins is the politics editor at The Palm Beach Post. You can reach him at afins@pbpost.com.

This article originally appeared on Palm Beach Post: Is Donald Trump all over newly released Jeffrey Epstein documents?