Trump defends promoting baseless conspiracy theory about Epstein's death

WASHINGTON - President Donald Trump on Tuesday defended his promotion of a baseless conspiracy theory about the death of Jeffrey Epstein over the weekend, saying he had retweeted a "very highly respected conservative pundit" who is a "big Trump fan."

On Saturday, Trump retweeted a message from conservative actor and comedian Terrence K. Williams that suggested former President Bill Clinton might have been involved in the death of Epstein, the politically connected financier who had been facing multiple charges of sex trafficking involving underage girls.

"He's a very highly respected conservative pundit," Trump told reporters in New Jersey, referring to Williams. "He's a big Trump fan. That was a retweet, that wasn't from me. That was from him, but he's a man with half a million followers, a lot of followers. And he's respected."

"So I think I was fine," added Trump, who has 63 million followers on Twitter.

Trump also noted that Attorney General William Barr had ordered an investigation into the circumstances around Epstein's death in a federal corrections facility in Manhattan, which the Justice Department initially called an "apparent suicide."

"Basically what we're saying is we want an investigation," Trump said. "I want a full investigation, and that's what I absolutely am demanding."

In his tweet on Saturday, Williams wrote that "#JefferyEpstein had information on Bill Clinton & now he's dead."

Epstein and Clinton had socialized together in the past, as had Epstein and Trump.

Angel Ureña, a Clinton spokesman, responded on Twitter on Saturday to Trump's retweet, writing: "Ridiculous, and of course not true - and Donald Trump knows it. Has he triggered the 25th Amendment yet?"

The 25th Amendment spells out a process for the president's Cabinet to remove him from office.

During an interview late last month on C-SPAN, Trump was asked if he regretted sending out any of his roughly 43,000 tweets.

"Not much," Trump said, before acknowledging that he has run into problems with some retweets.

"You know, you retweet something that sounds good, but it turned out to be from a player that's not the best player in the world," Trump said. That sort of causes a problem, but overall, I would say no, not at all. I think it's a modern-day form of communication."

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The Washington Post's Seung Min Kim contributed to this report.