Trump administration’s Epstein files release parodied in Saturday Night Live cold open

American comedian James Austin Johnson once again impersonated US president Donald Trump on Saturday, when the latest cold open for Saturday Night Live (SNL) saw the Potus parody discuss the Department of Justice’s partial release of the Epstein files on Friday.

Democrats have accused the Republican’s administration of a “cover-up” in relation to the files concerning disgraced financier and convicted paedophile Jeffrey Epstein, with those sitting on the House Oversight Committee pointing to one photo in the release which has “apparently now been removed”.

When approached for comment on the image’s removal, a White House spokesperson told The Independent the Trump administration was “the most transparent in history”.

Abigail Jackson said: “By releasing thousands of pages of documents, cooperating with the House Oversight Committee’s subpoena request, and President Trump recently calling for further investigations into Epstein’s Democrat friends, the Trump Administration has done more for the victims than Democrats ever have.”

Saturday Night Live/YouTube

Touching upon the controversial renaming of the Kennedy Center to The Donald J. Trump and The John F. Kennedy Center for the Performing Arts, Johnson’s Trump added he was renaming other monuments.

“Trump-Washington Monument, Trump-Lincoln Memorial, and of course, Big Elphaba.”

That’s the Statue of Liberty, by the way.

The fake Trump continued: “You know, people are saying, ‘sir, why are you putting your name on so many buildings?’

“And I say, ‘it’s because we had to take it off of so many files.’ Epstein. Redacted.”

The Potus parody later said his administration is “being very transparent” around the files, describing Epstein as a “terrible man” that he “didn’t know”, before saying he “liked him a lot”.

He even shared his own redacted versions of the files, which made up the sentences ‘Trump didn’t do nothing bad’ and ‘Trump does smash, but not like wrong kind. The End’.

President Trump is not accused of any wrongdoing and has said that he parted ways as friends with Epstein years ago.

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