In shades of “I did not inhale,” Alan Dershowitz admitted he got a massage at Jeffrey Epstein’s mansion but insists he kept his underwear on and never saw an underage girl there.

As Crooks and Liars noted, Axios’ Jonathan Swan revealed to Fox News viewers on Tuesday that, in an interview, Dershowitz had said he got a massage at Epstein’s from “an old, old Russian” and that he had said he saw no one underage. “What is this?” Swan asked incredulously.

Before that line of discussion could go any further, Washington Examiner’s Susan Ferrechio jumped in to take the heat off Dershowitz. “He’s a big Democratic donor,” she said, presumably meaning Epstein. Ferrechio also quickly added that Trump had banned Epstein from Mar-a-Lago “allegedly for assaulting an underage girl and President Trump allegedly cooperated with prosecutors on the Epstein case. So there’s all kinds of little details here that are being left out.”

One detail Ferrechio didn’t seem concerned with was Swan’s earlier revelation about the shocking lack of vetting by the Trump administration of both Alex Acosta, the current labor secretary who is now under fire for Epstein’s sweetheart deal brokered when Acosta was a federal prosecutor, as well as the previous labor secretary who turned out to be a wife beater.

On Wednesday, Crooks and Liars followed up with a local news report from WPLG about Dershowitz at the Epstein mansion. The report shows Dershowitz stating emphatically, “I never saw an underage woman” at Epstein’s mansion. But it also shows a transcript of Epstein’s former butler’s sworn testimony stating Dershowitz had been there when “young ladies” were around.

“Were there young women in another part of the [Epstein] house giving massages when I wasn’t around? I have no idea of that,” Dershowitz said in the WPLG report. Then we saw the clip of Dershowitz admitting he had had a massage there but “kept my underwear on.”

However, thanks to the Miami Herald’s reporting, we know there was a huge number of girls going in and out of Epstein’s mansion (the Herald “identified about 80 women who say they were molested or otherwise sexually abused by Epstein from 2001 to 2006”) and we know that Epstein insisted they be young.

So Dershowitz’s “I knew nothing” claim seems less and less believable. That’s not counting the fact that he has been accused of having sex with two of Epstein’s trafficked minors, which he adamantly denies. But The Hollywood Reporter’s Eriq Gardner pointed out that Dershowitz has been "play[ing] chicken in court." Gardner explained that first Dershowitz trolled one of the woman into suing him for defamation, claiming he’d win on the merits, yet is now trying to get the suit dismissed on other grounds and without any delving into the facts.

As C&L’s John Amato concluded, “Dershowitz is approaching Trump-level creepiness. He should stop talking about it altogether, the way he'd tell a client to do.”

For Dershowitz's sake, I agree. But I have to admit I'm enjoying watching the Trump propagandist him tie himself into a pretzel over a mess that shows every sign of growing larger.

Watch the July 9, 2019 Special Report discuss Dershowitz and the Epstein case below. Underneath is the WPLG report, via Crooks and Liars.