In a stunning display of political misfire, Rep. Jasmine Crockett (D-TX) aimed for scandal and landed squarely in embarrassment. During a heated debate over the proposed censure of Delegate Stacey Plaskett (D-VI) for her revealed communications with convicted sex offender Jeffrey Epstein, Crockett tried to flip the script—by accusing EPA head and former Congressman Lee Zeldin of taking money from Epstein himself.
Only one problem: it was the wrong Jeffrey Epstein.
According to Federal Election Commission (FEC) records, Zeldin did indeed receive a donation from a Dr. Jeffrey Epstein, a New York-based physician with no connection whatsoever to the infamous billionaire predator. Zeldin wasted no time correcting the record and firing back on X (formerly Twitter):
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.
NO FREAKIN RELATION YOU GENIUS!!! https://t.co/gYQlcUd2we
— Lee Zeldin (@LeeMZeldin) November 19, 2025
The bluntness of the reply—and the attached FEC screenshots confirming the doctor’s identity—left no doubt. Crockett had confused two very different men, undermining her own credibility in the process and inadvertently drawing even more attention to the real scandal still swirling around her colleague.
That scandal, of course, is Delegate Plaskett’s unsettlingly warm relationship with the actual Jeffrey Epstein, who not only donated to her campaigns in 2016 and 2018 but also coached her in real-time during a 2019 congressional hearing where she questioned Michael Cohen. Text messages released by the House Oversight Committee show Epstein complimenting Plaskett on her appearance, guiding her questioning strategy, and even congratulating her moments after her televised exchange.
Despite this, House Democrats voted in lockstep to shield Plaskett from censure. A resolution introduced by Rep. Ralph Norman (R-SC) sought to remove her from the House Intelligence Committee, which routinely handles sensitive national security information, citing the inappropriateness of her coordinating with a known sex offender. The vote failed 209-214, with three Republicans opposing it and another three voting present.
Defenders like Rep. Jamie Raskin (D-MD) argued that Epstein was technically a “constituent” of Plaskett due to his residence in the Virgin Islands, and downplayed the significance of the communications as “ill-advised but lawful.” But for many, this framing failed to address the core ethical question: how could a member of Congress accept political guidance from a convicted child predator during a nationally televised hearing?
And Crockett’s attempt to pivot scrutiny away from Plaskett by falsely accusing Zeldin only magnified that question.
