Proper-wing media character Megyn Kelly is dealing with backlash after her protection of the late financier and convicted intercourse offender Jeffrey Epstein, claiming that he was presumably “not a pedophile.”

“I do know any individual very, very near this case who is able to know just about the whole lot,” Kelly stated on the newest episode of her podcast. “And this individual has informed me from the beginning, years and years in the past, that Jeffrey Epstein, on this individual’s view, was not a pedophile.” 

She went on so as to add, “That is this individual’s view, who was there for lots of this, however that he was into the hardly authorized sort. Like, he preferred 15-year-old ladies. I’m simply providing you with details that he wasn’t into, like, 8-year-olds. However he preferred the very younger teen varieties that might cross for even youthful than they had been, however would look authorized to a passerby.”

Epstein was discovered responsible of soliciting a minor for prostitution in Florida in 2008, and was awaiting trial after being charged with trafficking and conspiracy to visitors minors for intercourse in New York in 2019 earlier than dying of an obvious suicide in his cell. 

Kelly would double down, proclaiming that she had issue believing Lawyer Common Pam Bondi. “For the primary time, I assumed, oh, no, he was an precise pedophile,” Kelly stated. “I don’t know whether or not it’s true. I’ve to be sincere, I don’t actually belief Pam Bondi’s phrase on the Epstein issues anymore.”

The feedback drew sharp criticism, with observers noting that Kelly would possibly’ve critically broken her profession. “That is career-ending for Megyn Kelly,” Democratic strategist Ally Sammarco stated to the Each day Beast. “Fifteen-year-olds are CHILDREN. They’ll’t drive. They’ll’t see rated R films. However disgusting 50-year-old males needs to be allowed to rape them? Goodbye. Without end.”

Others referred to as it one other signal that supporters of President Donald Trump (who has turn out to be extra distinguished in latest releases from the Epstein information) are keen to even defend baby intercourse abuse. Journalist Sarah Spain wrote in a put up on BlueSky: “These folks will actually go on television basically defending a grown man sleeping with 15 year-olds (rape, FYI!) in service of a political allegiance. At this level how can anybody say this isn’t a cult?”