President Donald Trump has been on a remarkable social media run over the past week, and not in a good way. He posted an AI-generated image on Truth Social appearing to depict himself as a Jesus-like figure, then followed it up with a series of scathing public attacks against Pope Leo XIV. The backlash from Americans, including many of his own Christian supporters, was swift and widespread.
Now Trump has found a fresh way to push his name back into controversial territory. He is publicly backing an extraordinary plan to have his 2019 impeachment by the House of Representatives erased from the official record entirely. The word “disgraceful” spread fast across social media the moment the post went public.
What made it even more alarming to many observers was the person Trump chose to champion. The man behind the expungement idea is Alan Dershowitz, a Harvard Law professor emeritus and the longtime personal attorney of convicted pedophile and sex trafficker Jeffrey Epstein. By calling Dershowitz “one of the greats” on Truth Social, Trump accidentally put the Epstein spotlight right back on himself.
Dershowitz is well known for helping negotiate the deeply controversial 2008 plea deal that allowed Epstein to avoid serious federal prosecution. After pleading guilty to soliciting prostitution, including the solicitation of a minor, he served just 13 months in a Palm Beach County jail under a work release program. He also walked away with federal immunity from any further sex trafficking charges, a stunning outcome according to NPR.
That sweetheart deal had devastating and lasting consequences. Because of it, Epstein remained free to continue committing the same crimes against girls and young women for a full decade more. He was not arrested again until 2019, the same year Trump faced his first impeachment.
On April 14, Trump posted on his Truth Social platform and publicly endorsed the Dershowitz expungement plan. He wrote “Alan, one of the greats, should do it!” directly above a link to the interview where Dershowitz had first floated the idea. The post spread immediately and triggered a fierce reaction across the internet.
Dershowitz had appeared on the conservative outlet Just the News the night before, where he laid out the legal theory behind his proposal. He acknowledged openly that no presidential impeachment has ever been reversed or erased in American history. But he argued that the absence of historical precedent does not make the move legally impossible.
“It’s never been done. I don’t see any reason why it couldn’t be done,” Dershowitz told the outlet.
Dershowitz, who himself represented Trump during the 2019 Senate impeachment trial, suggested Trump pursue what he called “an interesting, novel approach.” The idea would be to appeal directly to Supreme Court Chief Justice John Roberts, who presided over that Senate trial, or to go through Congress itself. The legal argument would rest on the claim that Trump’s defense team was not permitted to properly confront his accusers at the time.
Forbes showed little enthusiasm for the plan. The outlet described the basis for the expungement push as “seemingly flimsy evidence of a ‘conspiracy’ surrounding the House vote to remove him from office.” Legal experts across the spectrum have been equally skeptical, with Newsweek noting there is no mechanism in the U.S. Constitution or House rules that would allow an impeachment to be undone.
For readers who need a quick refresher, Trump’s first impeachment stemmed from a July 2019 phone call with Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy. A whistleblower revealed that Trump allegedly tried to use $400 million in approved military aid as leverage to pressure Zelenskyy into investigating political rival Joe Biden ahead of the 2020 presidential election. The House impeached him on charges of abuse of power and obstruction of Congress, though the Senate did not convict him.
Social media reacted with outrage almost immediately after the post went live. X user Mindful Primate wrote furiously: “The Epstein Network still functions, protecting their own. Convicted felon and adjudicated rapist Trump is asking disgraced Epstein lawyer and pal Alan Dershowitz to get the corrupt House and Senate GOP cowards to remove his Impeachment record. Disgraceful!”
This suspicious X user expressed clear doubt about Trump’s choice of endorsement. “Uhhhh… Donald Trump is shouting out Jeffrey Epstein’s buddy and former attorney, Alan Dershowitz, calling him ‘one of the greats.’ Wonder why that is?” The Bond Guy kept his take short and sharp: “Trump loves dirtbags.”
The Epstein connection is not simply a social media talking point. Just last week, First Lady Melania Trump held a rare and unexpected public statement at the White House, pushing back against rumors linking her personally to Epstein and his close associate Ghislaine Maxwell. Days later, President Trump claimed once again that he has been “totally exonerated on Epstein,” a claim that remains demonstrably false.
Trump signed the Epstein Files Transparency Act into law in November 2025, a bill that required the Justice Department to release all documents tied to its investigation of the deceased sex trafficker. Yet his administration has been actively slow-walking that very release ever since. The DOJ has not yet released the full set of files, but what has already been made public shows Trump’s name appearing thousands of times throughout the documents.
He and Epstein were close friends from the 1980s through the mid-2000s, when the two had a reported falling-out. That long and well-documented history is precisely why Americans keep connecting the dots every time Trump praises someone like Dershowitz. The friendship did not disappear just because Trump says it did.
Every time Trump attempts to put the Epstein chapter behind him, a move like this one drags it right back into the national conversation. Praising Epstein’s own attorney while pushing a legally untested plan to rewrite his own political record is exactly the kind of decision that keeps both stories alive and growing. Whether that reflects poor judgment, reckless confidence, or something more deliberate is a question millions of Americans are now asking out loud.
