The Official X Account for the House Judiciary GOP Made a Rickrolling Joke About Jeffrey Epstein

Two decades after Rick Astley released his chart-topping song "Never Gonna Give You Up," it found new life in a bizarre corner of the internet. There are a few origin stories explaining the birth of Rickrolling, but the most accepted one involves Grand Theft Auto IV. When a trailer for the game dropped in 2007, it literally broke Rockstar Games's website. People started mirroring the trailer on various websites, but one 4chan user tricked folks into opening a link to a video for Rick's song.

From that day on, pulling that kind of fast one was referred to as Rickrolling. For the most part it's done in jest and is always hilarious. There are few internet jokes that have that kind of staying power. In fact, its reach is so powerful, that in February 2025 the official X account for the House Judiciary GOP Rickrolled people who were looking for the full Jeffrey Epstein files.

In a since-deleted post to X, the official account for the House Judiciary GOP posted "#BREAKING: EPSTEIN FILES RELEASED," followed by a link that took users to the infamous "Never Gonna Give You Up" music video. This move was immediately criticized by those who didn't seem to share the account's sense of humor when it comes to child sex trafficking.

One user shared the post, commenting, "Hey, so Rickrolling the American public regarding information that involves a man who graped [sic] and trafficked children is beyond evil and whoever did this should be fired immediately." Another wrote, "Sorry to the victims who are very much going to see that and yeah, glad this is a f--king joke to you." Like these responses, most people were disgusted by this decision.

In a letter dated Feb. 27, 2025, Attorney General Pam Bondi wrote to FBI Director Kash Patel regarding the "full and complete" Jeffrey Epstein files. She said her request was met with a 200-page document consisting of Epstein's list of contacts, victims' names, and flight logs, all of which have already been released. According to the New York Post, Bondi was told by a witness that the "FBI Field Office in New York has thousands of pages worth of outstanding documents."

"I repeatedly questioned whether this was the full set of documents responsive to my request," wrote Bondi in her letter to Patel, "and was repeatedly assured by the FBI that we had received the full set of documents." Apparently, when Bondi told Patel about these documents, their existence surprised him as much as her. She demanded that Patel deliver the "full and complete Epstein files" to her office by 8:00 a.m. on Feb. 28. Bondi gave Patel 14 days to investigate why her order was not followed.