The Department of Justice concluding that Jeffrey Epstein killed himself, that there’s no evidence he ever blackmailed anyone, and that there’s no evidence he had a “client list” has outraged much of MAGA world, and this weekend, President Trump told his followers that they should stop wasting time thinking about and talking about Epstein. Shockingly, this was not persuasive.
You can’t begrudge any Trump voter or MAGA supporter for feeling more than a little bewildered and betrayed to hear the president insisting this weekend that no one cares about Jeffrey Epstein, and an out-of-the-blue contention that unspecified “Epstein Files” were created by former President Obama, former Senator Hillary Clinton, and other officials from a Democratic administration.
The president, on Truth Social, 5:21 p.m. Saturday:
What’s going on with my “boys” and, in some cases, “gals?” They’re all going after Attorney General Pam Bondi, who is doing a FANTASTIC JOB! We’re on one Team, MAGA, and I don’t like what’s happening. We have a PERFECT Administration, THE TALK OF THE WORLD, and “selfish people” are trying to hurt it, all over a guy who never dies, Jeffrey Epstein. For years, it’s Epstein, over and over again. Why are we giving publicity to Files written by Obama, Crooked Hillary, Comey, Brennan, and the Losers and Criminals of the Biden Administration, who conned the World with the Russia, Russia, Russia Hoax, 51 “Intelligence” Agents, “THE LAPTOP FROM HELL,” and more? They created the Epstein Files, just like they created the FAKE Hillary Clinton/Christopher Steele Dossier that they used on me, and now my so-called “friends” are playing right into their hands. Why didn’t these Radical Left Lunatics release the Epstein Files? If there was ANYTHING in there that could have hurt the MAGA Movement, why didn’t they use it? They haven’t even given up on the John F. Kennedy or Martin Luther King, Jr. Files. No matter how much success we have had, securing the Border, deporting Criminals, fixing the Economy, Energy Dominance, a Safer World where Iran will not have Nuclear Weapons, it’s never enough for some people. We are about to achieve more in 6 months than any other Administration has achieved in over 100 years, and we have so much more to do. We are saving our Country and, MAKING AMERICA GREAT AGAIN, which will continue to be our complete PRIORITY. The Left is imploding! Kash Patel, and the FBI, must be focused on investigating Voter Fraud, Political Corruption, ActBlue, The Rigged and Stolen Election of 2020, and arresting Thugs and Criminals, instead of spending month after month looking at nothing but the same old, Radical Left inspired Documents on Jeffrey Epstein. LET PAM BONDI DO HER JOB — SHE’S GREAT! The 2020 Election was Rigged and Stolen, and they tried to do the same thing in 2024 — That’s what she is looking into as AG, and much more. One year ago our Country was DEAD, now it’s the “HOTTEST” Country anywhere in the World. Let’s keep it that way, and not waste Time and Energy on Jeffrey Epstein, somebody that nobody cares about. Thank you for your attention to this matter!
If you want people to stop talking about Epstein, a long angry tirade about Epstein is probably not going to do the trick. And if you don’t want people to believe that there is some document that ties Trump to Epstein in some deeply embarrassing or scandalous way, it is probably not helpful to preemptively insist that the “files” were created by political enemies.
Last week, the U.S. Department of Justice and Federal Bureau of Investigation announced the results of what they described as “an exhaustive review of investigative holdings relating to Jeffrey Epstein”:
This systematic review revealed no incriminating “client list.” There was also no credible evidence found that Epstein blackmailed prominent individuals as part of his actions. We did not uncover evidence that could predicate an investigation against uncharged third parties. . . .One of our highest priorities is combatting child exploitation and bringing justice to victims. Perpetuating unfounded theories about Epstein serves neither of those ends. . . .After a thorough investigation, FBI investigators concluded that Jeffrey Epstein committed suicide in his cell at the Metropolitan Correctional Center in New York City on August 10, 2019. This conclusion is consistent with previous findings, including the August 19, 2019 autopsy findings of the New York City Office of the Chief Medical Examiner, the November 2019 position of the U.S. Attorney’s Office for the Southern District of New York in connection with the investigation of federal correctional officers responsible for guarding Epstein, and the June 2023 conclusions of DOJ’s Office of the Inspector General.
If you read Trump’s Truth Social tirade above and think, “Wait, asking questions about Epstein is a waste of time and effort? That doesn’t sound like what Trump said about Epstein before,” you are correct. At least twice on the campaign trail in 2024, Trump was asked about releasing any information the government had about Epstein.
President Trump, in an interview on Fox and Friends, June 2, 2024:
Rachel Campos-Duffy: Some people think that one way to build trust is to declassify things that everyone’s talking about. I know you talked earlier about ‘I don’t want to be a conspiracy theorist.’ So if you were president — you can answer yes or no to these — Would you declassify the 9/11 files?Donald Trump: Yeah.Campos-Duffy: Would you declassify JFK files?Trump: Yeah. I did a lot of it.Campos-Duffy: Would you declassify the Epstein files?Trump: Yeah, I would. I guess I would. I think that, less so, because you don’t want to affect people’s lives if it’s phony stuff in there because it’s a lot of phony stuff with that whole world.Campos-Duffy: Did you think that would help restore trust?Trump: I don’t know about Epstein so much as I do the others. Certainly, about the way he died, it would be interesting to find out what happened there, because that was a weird situation, and the cameras didn’t happen to be working, etc., etc., etc. But yeah, I’d go a long way toward that one. The other stuff, I would.
Trump, in an interview with podcast host Lex Fridman, September 3, 2024:
Lex Fridman: There’s a moment where you had some hesitation about Epstein releasing some of the documents on Epstein. Why the hesitation?Donald Trump: I don’t think . . . I’m not involved. I never went to his island, fortunately, but a lot of people did.Fridman: Why do you think so many smart, powerful people allowed him to get so close?Trump: He was a good salesman. He was a hailing, hearty type of guy. He had some nice assets that he’d throw around like islands, but a lot of big people went to that island. But fortunately, I was not one of them.Fridman: It’s just very strange for a lot of people, that the list of clients that went to the island has not been made public.Trump: It’s very interesting, isn’t it? It probably will be, by the way, probably.Fridman: If you’re able to, you’ll be—Trump: Yeah, I’d certainly take a look at it. Now, Kennedy’s interesting because it’s so many years ago. They do that for danger too, because it endangers certain people, et cetera, et cetera, so Kennedy is very different from the Epstein thing, but I’d be inclined to do the Epstein. I’d have no problem with it.
For that matter, JD Vance, in an interview with podcast host Theo Von, October 22, 2024: “Seriously, we need to release the Epstein list. That is an important thing. We can go down that rabbit hole.”
Of course, Trump isn’t the only figure in the administration who has made a sudden about-face regarding allegations that there is a government coverup to hide the extent of Epstein’s crimes and associates.
Current FBI director Kash Patel, in an interview with Benny Johnson, December 19, 2023:
Kash Patel: It’s the same thing with Epstein’s list. What the hell are these Republicans doing?Johnson: I saw you make news this morning about that. I’ve got to get to that. You say that the FBI has Epstein’s list. They’re sitting on it. That doesn’t seem like something you should do. You’re protecting the world’s foremost predator. That seems like an evil thing to do, regardless of who may be embarrassed by the release of that list. Why is the FBI protecting the greatest pederast, the largest-scale pederast, in human history?Patel: Simple, because of who’s on that list. You don’t think that Bill Gates is lobbying Congress, night and day, to prevent the disclosure of that list? And why is it that the Senate — and you know, good for Senator [Marsha] Blackburn [of Tennessee] to get it out, but [Illinois senator] Dick Durbin comes over the top and says, ‘no, we’re not going to release the names.’ I don’t care about the list itself, but release the names, right? What the hell are the House Republicans doing? They have the majority? You can’t get the list? You’re going to accept Dick Durbin’s word or whoever that guy is, as to who is on that list and who isn’t, and that it can or can’t be released? Put on your big boy pants and let us know who the pedophiles are! We have an election coming up, and we need to adjudicate this matter at the polls! God knows the FBI and DOJ aren’t going to do anything!
Again, Kash Patel is now the director of the FBI. A bit more than a year ago, he was irately demanding that House Republicans do more to obtain a list that he insisted was in possession of the bureau, and he contended their failure to do so was a sign that they were incapable of putting on their “big boy pants.”
Who is incapable of putting on big boy pants now?
Patel’s right-hand man at the FBI is deputy director Dan Bongino.
Bongino, appearing on Tim Pool’s podcast, back on May 22, 2023:
I’m in a green room at Fox. And I’m not gonna say who, because they didn’t give me permission to share, but the short story, you know who they are. He says, ‘You know Epstein’s an intelligence asset for people in the Middle East, right?’ I’m like, ‘No, I didn’t know that.’ I’m like, ‘You sure of that? The person, let’s say, is like, ‘I’m absolutely sure of that. That he’s either very witting or unwitting asset, intelligence asset meaning his plane and that island, the cameras — there’s a big assumption out there that these videotapes were exclusively in the custody of Epstein. That’s a huge mistake. The reason they wanted this story to go away is because there’s an assumption like ‘Oh yeah Epstein had them — no he wasn’t the only one who had them, according to this source. These assets — that’s why this blackmail story makes so much sense! Which Middle Eastern countries they are, I don’t know, but this person who’s a very, very good reporter I mean, aces, right, swore Epstein was either a witting or unwitting intelligence asset and they may have had his plane wired up and they’re the ones who have all this stuff.
(Note that Johnson and Pool worked for Tenet Media, which was the centerpiece of a “$10 million scheme to create and distribute content to U.S. audiences with hidden Russian government messaging,” according to the U.S. Department of Justice. Neither Johnson nor Pool were charged with any crime; apparently they had no idea they were working for figures in the Russian government and thought it was one of those perfectly normal business arrangements where a Belgian private-equity-fund manager with no paper trail or online presence and whose name is spelled different ways on different documents pays them a monthly fee of $400,000 to make one video a week. You know, the usual.)
Remember, now the FBI declares, “perpetuating unfounded theories about Epstein” does not help combat child exploitation and bring justice to victims.”
And as noted last week, Attorney General Pam Bondi said that Epstein’s client list was “on her desk” during an appearance on Fox News Channel, February 21:
Anchor John Roberts: The DOJ may be releasing the list of Jeffrey Epstein’s clients?Attorney General Bondi: It’s sitting on my desk right now to review. That’s been a directive by President Trump. I’m reviewing that, I’m reviewing JFK files, MLK files, That’s all in the process of being reviewed, because that was done at the directive of the president from all of these agencies.Roberts: So have you seen anything, that you said, ‘Oh, my gosh?’Bondi: Not yet.
Last week at the White House, Bondi said, “In February, I did an interview on Fox that got a lot of attention because I was asked a question about the ‘client list.’ My response was, ‘It is sitting on my desk to be reviewed’ — meaning the file, along with the JFK and MLK files as well. That is what I meant by that.”
You can watch Bondi’s exchange with Fox News’ John Roberts on YouTube; it is extremely difficult to believe she did not understand the question was about “the list of Jeffrey Epstein’s clients.”
All these figures — Trump, Vance, Patel, and Bongino — were perfectly comfortable embracing and promoting the belief that Epstein had many unnamed clients involved in sordid crimes, that these figures were being blackmailed, that there was a list of these perpetrators of sex crimes, and that the list was being suppressed and hidden by individuals within the FBI. And now that Trump, Vance, Patel, and Bongino are running and overseeing the FBI, they’re forced to stand silently as the bureau announces there is no evidence this list ever existed, nor that anyone was being blackmailed, nor is there evidence that Epstein was murdered.
Throw in Bondi now contending she accidentally referred to documents that don’t exist, and we have a group of people running federal law enforcement who have proven themselves untrustworthy. So far, they are dealing with this by calling up their preferred MAGA-adjacent reporters and leaking against each other.
There are a lot of people in MAGA-world who will respond to this by choosing one figure and declaring that one the truth-teller, and contending that everyone else is involved in the coverup. No one will reexamine their prior beliefs, no one will ask what they chose to believe in the absence of evidence, and every inconvenient fact will be dismissed as a “psyop.”
This past weekend, Steve Bannon told his audience, “We need to get to the bottom of Epstein. Because Epstein is the key that picks the lock.”
If Epstein is indeed “the key that picks the lock,” you would figure Bannon would release the 15 hours of interview footage he has with Epstein from a never-completed documentary about him, right? Kind of weird how, with all the public fascination about Epstein, in all these years since Epstein’s death, Bannon never released any of that, isn’t it?
