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House Oversight Dem was being ‘coached’ by Epstein via text during 2019 hearing: report

November 15, 2025 | | Print Article

A member of Congress whose radical background includes an alleged threat to the president appeared to have been receiving real-time coaching from Jeffrey Epstein during a live hearing.

Having lost messaging fights on government waste, open borders and their shutdown, the Democratic Party has once again fallen back on alleging an untoward connection between the late convicted sex offender and President Donald Trump.

However, a trove of documents received by the House Oversight Committee appeared to implicate further ties to Democratic congressional Delegate Stacey Plaskett, a non-voting representative for the Virgin Islands, as a new report detailed a text message exchange with Epstein during a 2019 hearing of the committee.

According to the report from The Washington Post, which synced up footage of the hearing with the time stamps of the messages, prior to Plaskett questioning former Trump attorney Michael Cohen, she received a message from Epstein that read, “Cohen brought up RONA – keeper of the secrets.”

“RONA?? Quick I’m up next is that an acronym,” replied the delegate as the financier explained of the former Trump executive assistant Rhona Graff, “Thats his assistant.”

As Plaskett questioned Cohen on “Ms. Rona” and the witness corrected with the name Rhona Graff, the text logs showed Epstein messaged, “Good work.”

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The message exchange by the delegate who served as a House manger during the second impeachment of Trump wasn’t the first time that she’d been connected with the conductor of the “Lolita Express” whose infamous private island, Little Saint James, falls within the U.S. Virgin Islands.

Previously, she had been exposed for requesting Epstein attend a 2018 fundraising event in a report which seemingly refuted her own claim of having been “unaware” that her campaign had received a contribution from the financier

“If you’d share this invitation with Jeffrey I’d be much appreciative. I would be grateful for his support and the support of those he may direct to assist me,” read the email to Epstein associate Lesley Groff published by The Virgin Islands Consortium.

Additionally, as journalist Michael Shellenberger reminded, “Plaskett is the person who smeared us during Twitter Files & falsely accused [Matt Taibbi],” threatening him with jail time as she accused him of lying after an acronym error had referred to the Cybersecurity and Infrastructure Security Agency (CISA) instead of the Center for Internet Security (CIS).

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In a statement reported by CNN, Plaskett spokesperson Angeline Jabbar said, “During the hearing, Congresswoman Plaskett received texts from staff, constituents and the public at large offering advice, support and in some cases partisan vitriol, including from Epstein.”

Her defense of the delegate who once let slip an assertion on MSNBC that Trump “needs to be shot” before correcting to “stopped, went on the detail, “As a former prosecutor she welcomes information that helps her get at the truth and took on the GOP that was trying to bury the truth. The congresswoman has previously made clear her long record combating sexual assault and human trafficking, her disgust over Epstein’s deviant behavior and her support for his victims.”

As for the latest link between Plaskett and Epstein, Miami Herald journalist Julie K. Brown added on X while sharing the Post’s report, “I am one of the few reporters who examined Plaskett’s relationship with Epstein. She accepted sizeable amounts of money from him and was one of the few people who refused to return campaign contributions even after it was clear he had committed so many crimes against girls.”

Kevin Haggerty
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