Democratic Texas Rep. Jasmine Crockett declined [1] Sunday to withdraw her accusation that Environmental Protection Agency Administrator Lee Zeldin accepted campaign contributions from Jeffrey Epstein, even after being shown that the donations she cited came from a different individual with the same name.
Crockett made the claim on the House floor on Nov. 18.
The contributions in question were not from the deceased sex offender, who died in 2019, but from a physician named Jeffrey Epstein who donated to Zeldin in 2020.
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 [2]
— Lee Zeldin (@LeeMZeldin) November 19, 2025 [3]
The issue resurfaced during Crockett’s appearance on MS NOW’s “The Weekend,” hosted by Jacqueline Alemany.
Alemany noted Crockett’s comments and said the congresswoman had made news by “mistakenly” accusing Zeldin and other Republicans of accepting money from the sex offender.
Crockett interrupted to state that her accusation was not accidental. Alemany then told her that Federal Election Commission data showed Zeldin and the other lawmakers identified by Crockett did not receive donations from the deceased Epstein.
“I want to give you the opportunity to amend that,” Alemany said.
“I have no amendments,” Crockett replied, again defending her original comments.
She said she did not have enough time before her floor speech to determine which Jeffrey Epstein had made the contributions.
“I had maybe 20 minutes. We researched the FEC and, because I like to speak with specificity — that’s kind of what comes with being an attorney — I made clear that there was a Jeffrey Epstein,” Crockett said.
She added that she did not have sufficient time to research the matter fully.
“They knew on the other side that I did not have time to actually pull up and actually research, especially since that particular one that Lee Zeldin got up in an uproar about was specifically out of the New York area. We know that he was out of that area and this obviously was not done post Jeffrey Epstein’s life, so I made sure that I said ‘a Jeffrey Epstein.’”
Alemany noted that the physician named Jeffrey Epstein made the donations in 2020, one year after the sex offender’s death. She then pressed Crockett further.
“But you were trying to insinuate that it was the Jeffrey Epstein,” Alemany said.
“Oh, I absolutely was insinuating that it could be possible. That is true,” Crockett responded.
She said she avoided directly naming the deceased Epstein because she could not verify the source of the donations at the time.
“But the point is, I never said that it was that specific one because I did not have the adequate time to do it. And so the Jeffrey Epstein has stepped forward and that’s not like, you know, a normal name. And I think that what would have been problematic is if I would have claimed that, say, that happened and it legitimately never happened. So ultimately, he cleared the record. I have not researched further. I’ve not talked to this doctor.”
Alemany asked Crockett to acknowledge that Zeldin did not receive money from the deceased sex offender. Crockett did not directly do so.
“I can agree that Lee Zeldin has said that he’s not received money from the Jeffrey Epstein,” she said. “Absolutely.”