A Trump official is touting conspiracy theories about Jeffrey Epstein's death

Lynne Patton.
(Image credit: Getty Images)

The conspiracy theories are already rolling in, and from within President Trump's administration to boot.

Lynne Patton, a longtime Trump insider and current official for the Department of Housing and Urban development, posted a screenshot on her Instagram account of a Daily Mail article about the suicide of alleged sex trafficker and millionaire financier Jeffrey Epstein, who was found dead in a Manhattan jail cell on Saturday morning.

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Foster was a former White House aide in the Clinton administration whose death has sparked multiple decades of conspiracy theories with Bill and Hillary Clinton at the center, despite there being no evidence contradicting the findings that it was a suicide.

Trump brought up the Foster theories during his presidential campaign against Hillary Clinton in 2016, and Patton's post appears to be another effort to draw a cloud over the president's former rival.

Both Trump and Bill Clinton have been connected to Epstein socially, but neither have been mentioned in allegations concerning illegal conduct.

Tim O'Donnell

Tim is a staff writer at The Week and has contributed to Bedford and Bowery and The New York Transatlantic. He is a graduate of Occidental College and NYU's journalism school. Tim enjoys writing about baseball, Europe, and extinct megafauna. He lives in New York City.