(CNN) On Tuesday afternoon, President Donald Trump was asked whether he really believed -- per a tweet he retweeted on Sunday -- that the Clintons were somehow behind the death of billionaire financier and accused sexual predator Jeffrey Epstein.

Here's how he responded:

"I have no idea. I know he was on his plane 27 times, and he said he was on the plane four times. But when they checked the plane logs, Bill Clinton, who was a very good friend of Epstein, he was on the plane about 27 or 28 times, so why did he say four times? And then the question you have to ask is 'Did Bill Clinton go to the island?' because Epstein had an island that was not a good place as I understand it, and I was never there. So you have to ask, 'Did Bill Clinton go to the island?' If you find that out, you're going to know a lot."

Which amounts to the verbal equivalent of drenching a fire with lighter fluid.

You might be tempted to look away or ignore this. After all, we know that Trump crafted his political persona in large part on a debunked conspiracy theory (that President Barack Obama was not born in the United States) and that he has spent his presidency swimming in conspiracy theory waters joyfully. We also know that in promoting a conspiracy theory that ties Espstein's death to his political enemies Bill and Hillary Clinton that Trump is actively trying to distract from the fact that he, too, had a relationship with Epstein and once even talked to New York Magazine about Epstein's known proclivity for young women.

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