On Tuesday night, House Republicans tried but sadly failed to censure Del. Stacey Plaskett (D-V.I.) in the wake of revelations that she was texting with Jeffrey Epstein during a 2019 congressional hearing with Michael Cohen. Her fellow Democrats came roaring to her defense ahead of the vote. And in the process of doing so, Rep. Jasmine Crockett (D-Texas) completely humiliated herself on the House floor.
Crockett thought she had a gotcha moment against the GOP by pointing out that multiple Republicans had also taken money from the convicted sex offender. The only problem? She was completely wrong.
"Folks who also took money from somebody named Jeffrey Epstein, as I had my team dig in very quickly: Mitt Romney, the NRCC, Lee Zeldin, George Bush, WinRed, McCain-Palin, Rick Lazio,” she said during a debate over the resolution to censure Plaskett, certain that she had a devastating exposé. “I just wanna be clear. If this is the standard that we gonna make, just know we gonna expose it all, and just know that the FEC filings, they are available for everybody to review. This is absolutely ridiculous.”
Crockett: Folks who also took money from somebody named Jeffrey Epstein, as I had my team dig in very quickly, Mitt Romney. The NRCC. Lee Zeldin. George Bush. McCain-Palin. pic.twitter.com/CdwuSacQpb
— Acyn (@Acyn) November 18, 2025
But her attempt at a gotcha moment backfired spectacularly. The Jeffrey Epstein who donated to these Republican campaigns was Dr. Jeffrey Epstein, a New York physician who happens to share a name with the infamous billionaire sex offender. Not exactly the smoking gun Crockett imagined.
EPA Administrator Lee Zeldin, one of the Republicans Crockett named, found the whole thing amusing enough to respond directly on X.
Yes Crockett, a physician named Dr. Jeffrey Epstein (who is a totally different person than the other Jeffrey Epstein) donated to a prior campaign of mine.
— Lee Zeldin (@LeeMZeldin) November 19, 2025
NO 👏 FREAKIN 👏 RELATION 👏 YOU 👏 GENIUS!!! https://t.co/gYQlcUd2we
A search of Federal Elections Commission reports yields more than 800 results for donations from individuals named Jeffrey Epstein, most of whom are clearly not the late sex trafficker. A solid clue for Crockett and her crack team of researchers would have been that some of the donations she mentioned came after Epstein’s death.
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Other Democrats rushed to Plaskett's defense with arguments that were perhaps even more embarrassing than Crockett's research failure. Rep. Jamie Raskin (D-Md.) called the censure effort "one more pathetic effort to distract and divert attention from the fact that the president's name appeared more than a thousand times already in the small fraction of material released on Epstein." However, as those mentions made clear, Epstein had absolutely no love for President Trump.
But Raskin’s defense of Plaskett got even more absurd: "I don’t think there’s any rule here against taking phone calls in a hearing. Now, if you wanna actually give her the chance to explain what happened, then we would take it to the Ethics Committee. I still don’t see what the charge is. Where is the ethical transgression? Where is legal transgression? Are you saying anybody on your side of the aisle who had a phone call with Jeffrey Epstein should be censured? Be careful of your answer there."
The issue, of course, isn’t that Plaskett took a phone call from Epstein; it’s that she was texting back and forth with him during a congressional hearing, getting advice on how to proceed. How many of you text regularly with your representative in Congress? Or even have their personal number?
The censure vote ultimately failed 209-214, with three Republicans joining Democrats in opposition and three more voting present. Democrats largely rallied around Plaskett, demonstrating that they view the Epstein matter purely as a political weapon to use against Republicans rather than a serious issue involving the protection of victims. Crockett's botched attack only reinforced that impression, showing that Democrats are so eager to turn the tables on the GOP that they can't be bothered to spend five minutes verifying basic facts before making wild accusations on the House floor.
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