Dems target Eli Crane for flip-flopping on Epstein file disclosure

National Democrats are launching a social media ad blitz in Arizona to call out Republican U.S. Rep. Eli Crane for flip-flopping on his promise to release more information on Jeffrey Epstein.

The ad buy comes just days after congressional Democrats published a lewd birthday card from President Donald Trump to the convicted sex offender. Trump, administration officials and Republican politicians alike have dismissed the card as a “hoax,” while Democrats have seized on it as proof that Republicans are trying to bury details about the yearslong relationship between the president and Epstein.

DNC chairman Ken Martin criticized the effort to cover-up the scandal and questioned the commitment of Republican elected officials to their constituents.

“Donald Trump is hiding something, and Republicans in Congress are covering for him,” he said in a written statement. “If House Republicans can’t even stand up for the victims and survivors of a notorious sexual predator, if they won’t even call out the president for a blatant government coverup, then how can their voters trust them?” Digital ads centering the birthday card and a picture of Trump standing with Epstein with a banner underneath urging them to call the Republican to demand the release of information on Epstein will run for a week across the Facebook and Instagram feeds of users in Crane’s Congressional District 2.

The social media strategy is part of a larger Democratic blitz across the country targeting vulnerable Republican lawmakers and those who have walked back promises to release documents related to Epstein. Crane vowed to help declassify government information about Epstein on X in February and was among a handful of Republicans to express support for a congressional resolution in July to do just that.

“Transparency matters,” he wrote, in a post on X in support of the resolution.

But months later, the Republican has backtracked on the issue. As of Sept. 9, 216 members of Congress have added their names to the resolution. It needs 218 to force a vote in the U.S. House of Representatives. Crane hasn’t signed it. And on the same day that the president’s birthday card to Epstein was published, Crane reposted a statement from the GOP-controlled House Committee on Oversight and Government Reform denouncing the action as “cherry-picking documents and politicizing information,” by Democrats on the committee.

The salacious birthday card features a hand-drawn naked silhouette of a female form, includes phrases alluding to “secrets” and “things in common” between Epstein and Trump, and is signed by Trump. Its release has not only resulted in a political headache for the Trump administration but heightened an already fever-pitch furor among voters, including many Republicans.

Trump campaigned for president by pledging to release federal case files into Epstein, but has since declared that it is “a hoax” as he’s resisted the transparency he promised.

While CD2 stretches across much of Northern Arizona and spans Yavapai County, a red stronghold, Democrats are banking on the speculation around Epstein to sway public opinion in the area. A July poll estimated that just under 70% of Americans believe the federal government is concealing information about an Epstein “client list,” including a majority of respondents who identified as Republican.

Trump and Epstein socialized frequently in high-profile circles, attending parties in Palm Beach and New York. Photographs show them together at social events, including a 1992 party at Mar-a-Lago and Trump’s 1993 wedding. Epstein’s private jet logs also recorded Trump on at least eight flights between 1993 and 1997.

Epstein pleaded guilty in 2008 in Florida to a state charge of soliciting prostitution from a teenage girl after securing a non-prosecution agreement from federal prosecutors. He was then arrested in 2019 on federal sex trafficking charges and died by suicide while in prison awaiting trial.