As the U.S. Department of Justice continued to release files related to the case of late sex offender Jeffrey Epstein in December 2025, a rumor took hold on social media that the White House had started to manage the X account of the Department of Justice.
One X user claimed the change in account management was to protect President Donald Trump, whose name appeared multiple times in Epstein-related documents the DOJ released in December 2025 (archived):
The post amassed 1.6 million views and nearly 100,000 likes as of this writing. Other X accounts made the same claim, with some arguing that the White House handling the Justice Department’s social media presence would be a break from the agency’s long-standing independence from the chief executive.
The rumor stemmed from a Dec. 23, 2025, report by Axios, a reputable news outlet. In the report, Axios said, “The White House has begun managing the DOJ’s account on X, an effort to finish out the year and the Epstein file disclosure requirements set by Congress.”
In addition, the report read, “The account is also taking on a sharper tone that has more of a rapid-response campaign edge and less of the stodgy just-the-facts tone associated with the department.”
Snopes was unable to independently verify whether the claim the White House was managing the DOJ account was true or not. As such, we have not rated it.
A White House official denied the claim was true. “DOJ is still running the account,” the official said in an email.
Snopes reached out to Axios to inquire about the details of their report. We will update this story if we receive a response.
A review of the DOJ X account, which uses the handle @TheJusticeDept and has the gray checkmark badge X uses to identify government accounts, revealed one example of the account using a “sharper” tone of the type noted in the Axios report. In response to someone asking why the DOJ would “publicly release something that’s fake,” the DOJ account called the user a “dope” (archived):
That user was referring to a disputed letter purportedly from Epstein to fellow convicted sex offender Larry Nassar, which the DOJ account called “FAKE” in a Dec. 23 X post (archived).
For further reading, Snopes has covered many rumors about the contents of Epstein-related files the DOJ released in late 2025 including one purportedly linking Trump to a 14-year-old girl.
