The Reacher star demanded full disclosure during a profanity-heavy podcast appearance. The White House says Donald Trump has already released millions of pages and been “totally exonerated”.
Alan Ritchson has drawn a response from the White House after launching an extraordinary attack on Donald Trump and demanding the publication of every remaining government record relating to Jeffrey Epstein.
The 43-year-old actor, best known for playing Jack Reacher in Amazon’s hit television series, made the comments during an appearance on Josh Horowitz’s Happy Sad Confused podcast.
Ritchson was discussing his reputation for being outspoken when the conversation turned to political corruption and sexual abuse.
“People, I think, are a little afraid of me because they’re like, ‘He’s a loose cannon,’ and I am not,” he said.
He argued that his public interventions were driven by anger at abuses committed by powerful people, before turning directly to the Epstein records.
“The f—ing Epstein files. Goddammit, where are they? It’s a f—ing law. Show it,” Ritchson said.
He went on to say he would release the records immediately if he had the power, demanding access to the documents so that anyone implicated in criminal conduct could be investigated.
Ritchson then referred to “rapists” and “paedophiles” whom he believes are being protected, before alluding unmistakably to Trump as the person holding America’s nuclear codes.
Ritchson went further than demanding transparency
The actor also made an unsupported allegation involving Trump and a 13-year-old girl.
Ritchson provided no evidence during the interview. Trump has denied allegations of sexual misconduct connected to Epstein, and he has not been charged with an Epstein-related offence.
A woman filed a civil lawsuit in 2016 accusing Trump and Epstein of raping her when she was 13. Trump denied the allegation and the lawsuit was later voluntarily withdrawn without the claim being tested at trial.
Separate allegations involving Trump appeared in records collected during the Epstein investigation. The White House has dismissed them as baseless, while American authorities have not brought criminal charges against the president arising from those claims.
That history makes careful wording necessary. Ritchson’s anger about the handling of the files is clear. His allegations against Trump remain allegations.
The White House responds
Ritchson’s comments prompted White House spokeswoman Abigail Jackson to issue a statement to Entertainment Weekly.
Jackson said Trump had been “totally exonerated on anything relating to Epstein”.
She pointed to the administration’s publication of records, its cooperation with the House Oversight Committee and Trump’s decision to sign the Epstein Files Transparency Act.
Jackson claimed the president had “done more for Epstein’s victims than anyone before him”.
She then turned the attack on Democrats, accusing House minority leader Hakeem Jeffries and congresswoman Stacey Plaskett of seeking money or meetings from Epstein after his conviction. The statement did not provide further evidence for those accusations.
Millions of pages have been released
Ritchson’s demand needs one important qualification: the Trump administration has not released nothing.
The US Department of Justice announced in January that it had published nearly 3.5 million pages under the Epstein Files Transparency Act, along with more than 2,000 videos and 180,000 images.
Trump signed the legislation in November 2025.
According to the Justice Department, officials initially identified more than six million potentially relevant pages.
The department said the difference included duplicate documents, privileged material, violent images and records unrelated to the Epstein and Ghislaine Maxwell cases. Victims’ identities were also redacted.
Its public Epstein Library was most recently updated in July.
The dispute is therefore not over whether records have been published. It concerns whether everything covered by the law has been disclosed, whether the redactions are justified and whether politically sensitive material was initially left out.
Those questions became more pressing after missing FBI interview records involving allegations against Trump were identified. The Justice Department later published additional material, while continuing to describe the underlying claims as unverified.
Simply appearing in an Epstein document does not establish criminal conduct. The files contain witness statements, contact details, flight information, correspondence, untested allegations and tips supplied to investigators. Some of that material may be inaccurate.
Ritchson has personal experience of abuse
This was not the first time Ritchson had spoken publicly about sexual exploitation.
In a 2024 interview with The Hollywood Reporter, he said he had been sexually assaulted by a prominent photographer while working as a model.
He subsequently left the modelling industry, which he described as effectively operating as “legalised sex trafficking” because young models could be placed in dangerous situations without adequate protection.
Ritchson is also a practising Christian who has repeatedly criticised conservative Christians for supporting Trump. In the same 2024 interview, he called Trump a “rapist and a con man” and said he could not understand why churches treated him as a political figurehead.
His latest outburst was not an unexpected intervention from an otherwise apolitical actor. It was a louder version of arguments he has been making for several years.
What remains unresolved
The White House can accurately point to millions of pages released by the Justice Department and a law signed by Trump.
Ritchson and other critics can accurately point out that the department collected substantially more material than it published, that documents were added after the initial release and that arguments about omissions and redactions have continued.
What cannot responsibly be claimed is that every person named in the records committed a crime, or that an allegation becomes proven simply because it appears in an FBI file.
Ritchson clearly believes powerful people remain protected. The White House says Trump has pushed through unprecedented disclosure and has been cleared of wrongdoing.
Neither side showed much interest in lowering the temperature. Ritchson demanded the remaining files with enough swearing to make Jack Reacher sound restrained, and the White House answered by defending Trump and redirecting attention towards prominent Democrats.
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