Austin, Texas - Vice President JD Vance admitted during a podcast appearance with Joe Rogan that President Donald Trump's administration "screwed up" the releas of the Epstein Files.

In an interview with podcaster Joe Rogan released on Wednesday, Vance was pressed on the administration's "resistance" to release the files as Trump had repeatedly promised to do.

"If people want to say we mishandled the Epstein release – guilty. We did mishandle it," Vance said.

Vance argued they should have released "everything at the very beginning" of Trump's second term, but said failure in communications got in the way.

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"We absolutely screwed up the comms of the Epstein files. Like, we just did," he explained.

"But do I think the reason we screwed up the comms is because we were trying to hide something? No."

Vance – who described himself as an "OG Epstein conspiracy theorist" who's gone down "every single rabbit hole" – also made several bold claims that the late financier "clearly had connections to the upper, the highest levels" of American and Israeli intelligence.

The vice president's remarks come as President Trump – who was close friends with Epstein for decades and got mentioned in the files countless times – has been desperately trying to sweep the files scandal under the rug.

Despite his admissions, Vance continued to staunchly defend his boss, insisting that having looked at "most" of the files, he's "never seen a single piece of credible evidence that Trump ever engaged in wrongdoing."