Two years ago is not a long time, but Vivek Ramaswamy — now the apparent GOP nominee for Ohio governor — doesn’t seem to remember what he was saying about Jeffrey Epstein in 2023.
Back then, Ramaswamy was a candidate for the Republican presidential nomination, campaigning in the Iowa caucuses in what turned out to be a quixotic and hugely unsuccessful quest, his first appearance on a ballot of any kind, in any election.
He was all over social media and interviews with conservative talk shows proclaiming he was the “first” and “most vocal” public figure to call for the release of the Jeffrey Epstein files, which people assumed included a list of the child sex abuser’s clients whom he would hook up with under-aged girls.
The Cincinnati native and billionaire biotech engineer wrote this on X Dec. 9, 2023, less that a month before he ended his presidential campaign:
As president, I’ll release the full Epstein client list without apology. The administrative-police state should stop protecting its chief sponsors while weaponizing itself against its opponents. The first step to fix corruption is to see it.
As president, I’ll release the full Epstein client list without apology. The administrative-police state should stop protecting its chief sponsors while weaponizing itself against its opponents. The first step to fix corruption is to see it.
— Vivek Ramaswamy (@VivekGRamaswamy) December 9, 2023
For months before that, Ramaswamy was beating the drum for releasing the Epstein files, saying at one point that “Jeffrey Epstein didn’t act alone.”
This was easy for a Republican presidential candidate back in 2023, when Joe Biden was president and the files, as they are now, were in the possession of the Justice Department.
But since Donald Trump returned to the White House in January and Ramaswamy launched his campaign for governor — with Trump's endorsement — there’s not been a peep out of Ramaswamy on the matter.
Vivek Ramaswamy has never been the shy, retiring type.
“Vivek, a man who never seems to stop talking, has gone completely silent,” said former Ohio Democratic Party chairman David Pepper, who has targeted Ramaswamy numerous times in his Substack column.
WVXU’s requests to Ramaswamy’s campaign staff and strategists for an interview with the candidate went unanswered.
Ramaswamy has been rather busy lately. A very good tennis player himself since his days at St. Xavier High School, Ramaswamy flew back and forth between Ohio and New York City several times (on the private jet his campaign leases for $80,000 a month) so he could attend the U.S. Open tennis tournament.
He went back to New York Monday for a live segment on Fox News with Sen. Rick Scott of Florida to talk about being self-made billionaires and the prospect of a Democratic socialist, Zohran Mamdani, becoming the next mayor of New York City.
Former Ohio Department of Health Director Amy Acton, the only announced Democratic candidate for governor, has asked Ramaswamy to join her in calling for the public release of the Epstein files.
“I personally know what it is like to deal with abuse,” said Acton, who became a household name in Ohio as the face of the state’s 2020 response to the COVID-19 pandemic.
She was the victim of abuse and homelessness through the age of 12 as a child in Youngstown.
“Vivek has children too; surely he can’t be silent on this,” Acton told WVXU.
Ramaswamy and his wife Apoorva, a throat surgeon, have two young sons and another child on the way.
“He knows the harm done by Epstein and his clients; he has done so in the past,” Acton said. “But if you are going to be governor, you have to do tough things all the time. You have to speak up.”
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