In an attempt to defend the president’s repeated dismissal of the investigation into Epstein’s crimes as a “hoax,” Johnson said on Thursday, ”He’s not saying that what Epstein did is a hoax. It’s a terrible, unspeakable evil. He believes that himself.”

Johnson went on to repeat Trump’s oft-repeated account of booting Epstein from Mar-a-Lago before adding, “He was an FBI informant to try to take this stuff down.”

“Alright, alright, I know,” the speaker said, apparently having anticipated the question. “What I was referring to in that long conversation was what the victims’ attorney said. More than a decade ago, President Trump kicked Epstein out of Mar-a-Lago. He was one of the only people, or the only prominent people ... that he was willing to help law enforcement go after this guy.”

On CNN’s The Source, host Kaitlan Collins and Crockett discussed the doodle. “What do you make of the White House’s defense here?” Collins asked the Trump-critical Democratic lawmaker.

“The fact that the president is a liar? He’s consistent. I mean, that’s all I really got for you,” Crockett said, before laughing off claims from the Trump administration that the letter was cooked up by political opponents.

“We got this from the Epstein estate. This isn’t something that came from a random Democratic something; this came from the estate,” she explained.

She described the folly of suggesting that the letter was created by Democrats. “Like it before he even got elected. Remember when Epstein died, right? That was before Donald Trump got elected this time. And they would have had to have some kind of foresight that he was going to run for office again, somehow win again. And we’ve got to make sure that this is sitting here so that when a committee comes through to get this. It’s crazy.”