The Justice Department and the FBI released a memo last week concluding that no “further disclosure would be appropriate or warranted” regarding Jeffrey Epstein, the late financier and convicted sex offender, and acknowledged there was no secret “client list” in the government’s possession and that Epstein had killed himself.
In a normal world, this announcement would be news making, but not game-changing. But because the flames of the Epstein conspiracy have long been fanned by MAGA world, including Donald Trump loyalists now holding powerful positions in government, such as FBI director Kash Patel and deputy director Dan Bongino, the memo fueled a meltdown the likes of which we haven’t seen in a decade of Trump’s political movement. Here was the Trump administration, which was supposed to put an end to the so-called deep state, telling a conspiracy-addled base to essentially trust the deep state.
It’s always been easy for Trump and his allies to peddle conspiracy theories to explain away things like losing the 2020 election. Since winning the 2024 race, Team Trump seemed intent on giving the conspiracy crowd what it wanted and revealing how the government isn’t filled with well-intentioned, if occasionally incompetent, bureaucrats, but members of a deep-state cabal. Attorney General Pam Bondi intimated in a February Fox News interview that the Epstein client list was “sitting on my desk right now to review,” and days later, the White House invited 15 right-wing influencers to preview “The Epstein Files: Phase 1.” As Bondi backtracked, suggesting she was referring to other documents, MAGA figures, like Tucker Carlson, sounded off: “Bondi made a bunch of ludicrous claims on cable news shows that she couldn’t back up, and this current outrage is the result.”
As the Epstein fires burned, and MAGA world imploded, Trump appeared uncharacteristically bad at damage control. Trump is usually able to meet the base where it is and satiate the crowd; now he was like a magician out of tricks. “What’s going on with my ‘boys’ and, in some cases, ‘gals?’” he asked on Truth Social. “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.”
Trump, doing what he does, turned to another conspiracy theory to explain why the Epstein conspiracy fizzled out, writing that the files were “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.” Blaming Democrats, especially Barack Obama and Hillary Clinton, can be expected from Trump, but it was sort of late into the news cycle for a pivot.
Other Trump officials, like Deputy Attorney General Todd Blanche, defended the government’s conclusions on X, writing that “the suggestion by anyone that there was any daylight between the FBI and DOJ leadership on this memo’s composition and release is patently false.” Some in the right-wing media also backed up Trump. Turning Point USA’s Charlie Kirk told his viewers, “I’m done talking about Epstein,” adding, “I’m gonna trust my friends in the government.”
But it’s hard to close the book on Epstein after years of buildup. Epstein was found to have died by suicide in a New York prison cell in August 2019, three years into Trump’s first term. The murkiness surrounding his death sparked conspiracies, as did elements of his life, which hit several MAGA conspiracy sweet spots. Epstein had ties to powerful men, including Bill Clinton and Trump himself, and faced charges of trafficking and abusing underage girls, which dovetailed with QAnon theories about a global sex ring run by elites. When MAHA merged with MAGA, the conspiratorial base expanded, adding in people believing that chemtrails exist, vaccines cause autism, and fluoride is dangerous. The problem with fanning the flames of conspiracy theories is that sooner or later the piper must be paid, and a dismissive “nobody cares about Epstein” was not what the base wanted from its leader. The base came to Trump and elevated him to a near godlike figure because it wanted answers from him. Instead, he dismissed it.
Even the folks at Trump’s happy place, the curvy couch of Fox & Friends Weekend, warned of a “ticking time bomb” for the president. “You have to answer questions to the American people,” said cohost Kevin Corke. “Because absent that, this story won’t die, and that’s a distraction the president doesn’t want.” Meanwhile over on the War Room podcast, host Steve Bannon went as far as to suggest the GOP could “lose 10% of the MAGA movement” over Epstein, resulting in devastating midterm losses. And Natalie Winters, a War Room correspondent and Bannon protégé, told the Times that “people are really upset at the outright dismissal of it.”
Perhaps former Republican governor Chris Christie said it best on the Sunday shows: “We cannot let the president off that easily. He benefited directly from it. He fueled it. He encouraged it. And he certainly didn’t stop it.” Trump didn’t stop it when he could, and now there’s a danger that Epstein could block out the sun and eclipse the man who promised to reveal all.
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