Some of the Epstein files furor has died down for Donald Trump, but that doesn’t mean the crisis is over.
As of last week, it sure seemed as though Donald Trump had a real crisis on his hands and one that had the rare power to fracture his typically unwavering MAGA base. A large segment of his supporters remained loudly incensed over his administration’s failure to release the so-called Epstein files, which multiple officials — including Attorney General Pam Bondi and FBI director Kash Patel — had repeatedly promised to do.
Then on Thursday night, The Wall Street Journal dropped a bombshell: One of the Epstein files the Justice Department apparently had was a lewd and cryptic letter Trump had sent Jeffrey Epstein for his 50th birthday. Trump vehemently denied he’d written it, attacked the Journal and Dow Jones owner Rupert Murdoch, and moved to sue them, seeking a laughable $10 billion in damages. (It’s unlikely the lawsuit will be successful.) He also announced that he had instructed Bondi to seek the release of the grand-jury transcripts in the Epstein case. The Justice Department subsequently asked the court to do so, though it’s unlikely that the documents would reveal much, if any, new information.
Almost immediately after the Journal’s report dropped, some of Trump’s MAGA critics began changing their tune and aping the president’s attacks. The pull of a common enemy — the fake-news media — was too irresistible. Some of the furor did indeed die down over the next several days, and Trump began bragging that the “the Jeffrey Epstein hoax” had made him more popular (which it hasn’t). But is the scandal actually over? There’s still plenty of evidence that it isn’t.
First, we now know that the Trump administration was almost certainly aware of the birthday letter’s existence and wasn’t going to reveal it. What we don’t know is what else it sat on. The Justice Department conducted a massive review of files and testimony regarding Epstein, apparently reassigning hundreds of FBI personnel to the task — who were also asked to flag any mentions of Trump. Second, three months later, rather than make the files public, the department said releasing the files wasn’t warranted. The “client list” Bondi had said was on her desk didn’t actually exist, there wasn’t evidence of blackmail implicating Epstein’s high-profile associates, Epstein did in fact kill himself, and the FBI insisted that “perpetuating unfounded theories” about the case would neither combat child exploitation nor bring justice to victims. In the end, the administration effectively said, “Forget what we said before. Trust us now: There’s nothing more to see here” — and that didn’t go over well with many people who believe there definitely is more to see, and it looks like there was.
The persistent questions and intensity of the blowback surprised many journalists. It also definitely perturbed Trump, who as MAGA’s god-emperor isn’t used to, or okay with, sustained MAGA pushback. He began castigating and threatening anyone in his coalition who was demanding the files or suggesting he or his administration might be hiding something. Trump was an opportunistic Epstein-conspiracy booster during his presidential campaign, though he never embraced the “client list” rabbit hole, for what should be obvious reasons. He then became a conspiracy-debunking scold as president. This only fueled the angst ahead of the Journal report.
And Trump wasn’t the only one bracing against the blowback. Conservative pundits and MAGA influencers and Republicans in Congress clearly felt it too, whether they were true believers in the conspiracy theories or simply dodging hurled fruit on the bandwagon.
