Ah, Washington, D.C.—that glittering swamp where the powerful rub elbows with the peculiar, and sometimes the peculiar turn out to be convicted pedophiles with a knack for backseat driving congressional hearings. If politics is show business for ugly people, then the saga of Stacey Plaskett and Jeffrey Epstein is the off-Broadway flop that keeps getting revived, complete with plot twists that would make a bad spy novel blush. Here we are in late 2025, and the ghosts of Epstein’s island escapades are still haunting the halls of Congress, courtesy of freshly unsealed documents that reveal Plaskett, the non-voting delegate from the U.S. Virgin Islands, was swapping texts with the man himself during a 2019 grilling of Michael Cohen. And her excuse? Well, let’s just say it’s about as convincing as a politician promising to drain the swamp while installing a hot tub.
The Setup: A Hearing, a Fixer, and a Felon on Speed Dial
Flash back to February 27, 2019. The House Oversight Committee is in session, and Michael Cohen—Donald Trump’s former fixer, the guy who once said he’d take a bullet for the boss but ended up spilling the beans instead—is on the hot seat. Cohen’s dishing dirt on Trump Organization shenanigans, from hush money to henchmen. Enter Stacey Plaskett, fresh-faced delegate with a prosecutorial background, waiting her turn to lob questions. But unbeknownst to the C-SPAN audience, she’s got a spectral advisor in her pocket: Jeffrey Epstein, the financier who’d already pleaded guilty in 2008 to procuring a minor for prostitution and served a cushy 13 months in a Florida jail that made Club Fed look like Alcatraz.
Epstein, holed up somewhere—probably plotting his next yacht party—was texting Plaskett in real time, Pacific Time stamps aligning perfectly with the hearing’s Eastern Time drama. The messages, unearthed in a trove of thousands of pages from Epstein’s estate released on November 12, 2025, by the House Oversight Committee, paint a picture of a bizarre coaching session. Epstein wasn’t just chit-chatting about the weather in the Virgin Islands (where he owned two private islands, including the infamous Little Saint James); he was feeding lines like a deranged teleprompter.
The Texts: Epstein Plays Puppet Master
The exchanges kick off before Plaskett’s questioning slot. At 10:03 a.m. Pacific (1:03 p.m. Eastern, mid-hearing), Epstein texts: “He’s opened the door to questions re who are the other henchmen at Trump Org.” Plaskett fires back: “Yup. Very aware and waiting my turn.” Minutes later, she dives in, pressing Cohen on Trump Organization insiders like Allen Weisselberg, the CFO who’d later face his own legal woes.
It gets juicier. Epstein spots Cohen mentioning Rhona Graff, Trump’s longtime executive assistant, and texts: “Cohen brought up RONA – keeper of the secrets,” misspelling her name but nailing the intrigue. Plaskett, seemingly primed, follows up by asking Cohen about Graff’s role in the alleged schemes. Another gem: Epstein suggests probing Cohen on Trump’s foreign entanglements, and lo and behold, Plaskett steers her questions toward international dealings. The timestamps match the hearing footage like a synchronized swim routine—Epstein texts at 10:17 a.m. Pacific, and by 1:20 p.m. Eastern, Plaskett’s echoing his points.
This wasn’t a one-off flirtation with felony advice. Epstein had donated $2,700 to Plaskett’s campaign in 2016 and another $2,700 in 2018—sums she later redirected to Virgin Islands charities for abused women and children after Epstein’s July 6, 2019, arrest on federal sex trafficking charges. But the texts suggest a coziness that went beyond check-writing; Epstein was treating Congress like his personal suggestion box, and Plaskett was apparently open for business.
The Excuse: Prosecutors Gotta Prosecute, Even if It Means Texting Traffickers
Fast-forward to the fallout. When the texts surfaced last week, Plaskett’s office issued a statement that could have been scripted by a bad PR firm: During the hearing, she received messages from staff, constituents, and the public offering advice, support, and partisan vitriol—including from Epstein. Because nothing says “constituent services” like tips from a guy whose address book read like a who’s who of the elite and the indicted.
But Plaskett doubled down in a November 19, 2025, CNN interview, channeling her inner tough prosecutor. “As a prosecutor, you get information from people where you can,” she said, shrugging off the optics of chatting with a known sex offender 11 years after his guilty plea. “I believed that Jeffrey Epstein had information, and I was going to get information to get at the truth.” She insisted it wasn’t friendship—just business. “There are a lot of people who have done a lot of crimes. I’ve interviewed confidential informants. I’ve interviewed narcotics, drug traffickers and others. And that doesn’t mean that I’m their friend, that doesn’t mean that they are friendly with me. It means they have information that I need, and that I’m trying to get at the truth and that’s what I did.”
Lame? That’s putting it mildly. Epstein wasn’t some street-level snitch spilling on a drug ring; he was a convicted predator with ties to power brokers, and Plaskett was letting him backseat-drive a hearing aimed at Trump. If this is standard prosecutorial procedure, maybe we need fewer lawyers in Congress and more common sense.
The Aftermath: Censure Shenanigans and Swamp Survival
The revelations sparked a Republican-led push to censure Plaskett and boot her from the House Intelligence Committee. On November 18, 2025, the House Freedom Caucus brought a resolution to the floor, calling her conduct “beyond comprehension” and a discredit to the chamber. But in a 209-214 vote, it flopped—three Republicans crossed the aisle to vote no, and three more voted present, amid whispers of backroom deals to protect their own from Democratic retaliation.
Meanwhile, Minority Leader Hakeem Jeffries dodged questions about condemning Plaskett, admitting they’d talked privately but refusing to spill. And as of November 19, 2025, Plaskett remains defiant, “just moving forward” like a bad driver ignoring the rearview mirror full of wreckage.
In the end, this isn’t just about one delegate’s dubious texting habits; it’s a reminder that in D.C., the line between constituent outreach and creepy collusion is thinner than a politician’s promise. Epstein may have died on August 10, 2019—officially a suicide in his Manhattan jail cell—but his influence lingers like a bad cologne. If America First means cleaning house, maybe it’s time to fumigate the whole damn place.