President Donald Trump has returned to the world of QAnon conspiracies as the political headache over the Epstein files threatens to escalate beyond the summer.
During a social media spree on Wednesday, Trump shared a follower’s QAnon meme with the message: “Be the calm in the storm. We all knew this day would come.”
The meme featured a stoic president staring into the distance with a “Q” and a cross on his shirt collar, underlining the reference to the movement that Trump has flirted with over the years, due to some MAGA acolytes subscribing to its theories.
QAnon is based on the wild idea that Trump is waging a war against a secret cabal of Satan-worshipping elites–primarily Democrats, celebrities, and globalists–who run the world and are embroiled in a global child sex trafficking ring.
But the bizarre theory takes on somewhat new resonance in the context of the firestorm over Jeffrey Epstein, the disgraced financier who spent years running a child sex abuse network with the help of his accomplice, Ghislaine Maxwell.
On Wednesday, just as Trump was embarking on his social media spree, Maxwell’s petition challenging her sex trafficking convictions was officially slated for discussion at the Supreme Court’s post-summer conference, which takes place on September 29.
This means the issue is unlikely to die down any time soon, despite the president’s attempts to mitigate it.
Maxwell moved forward with her appeal merely three days after she met with Trump’s Deputy Attorney General, Todd Blanche, where, according to her lawyer, they discussed “more than 100 different people.”
On Tuesday, she wrote to testify to Congress about her former boyfriend’s sex crimes, provided she is granted immunity from further conviction and can delay her evidence until after her appeal.
However, in a notable move, she said she would be willing to testify unconditionally if she is granted leniency, something Trump has not ruled out giving her.
“If Ms. Maxwell were to receive clemency, she would be willing—and eager—to testify openly and honestly, in public, before Congress in Washington, D.C,” her lawyers wrote in a letter to the House Oversight Committee, obtained by the Daily Beast.
A spokeswoman for the committee said it “will respond to Ms. Maxwell’s attorney soon, but it will not consider granting congressional immunity for her testimony.”
The back-and-forth heightens the stakes for Trump and the GOP, even as Congress adjourns for the August recess.
But as Washington slows down for summer, the push for transparency over the Epstein files will continue in battleground states where some progressive groups have already started releasing attack ads trolling House Republicans over it.
One digital ad released by 314 Action, obtained by the Daily Beast, targets House Republicans whose swing districts are likely to be vulnerable in the midterms, including Iowa’s Mariannette Miller-Meeks, Arizona’s. David Schweikert and Pennsylvania’s Ryan Mackenzie.
“This is the biggest political scandal of our time,” said the group’s president, Shaughnessy Naughton. “It’s time to tell Americans the truth and it’s up to Congress to act.”
Trump’s amplification of the QAnon meme on Wednesday is not the first time he or his MAGA allies have shown tacit support of the movement.
Some followers have attended his rallies over the years, such as Jacob Chansley, the spear-carrying January 6 rioter Trump pardoned after taking office.
Jacob Chansley, the “QAnon Shaman,” will get his viking helmet and spear back from federal investigators.
Win McNamee/Getty Images
Asked about QAnon during a White House briefing in August 2020, Trump also said that while “I don’t know much about the movement… I’ve heard that these people love our country.”
“If I can help save the world from problems, I’m willing to do it,” he added.
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