The Epstein Files

As Donald J. Trump continues to reign over his kakistocracy — have you noticed that he has the least competent members of his Cabinet in the most important roles — and to pursue affirmative action for white Christian males, you may have noticed that over the last couple of weeks he has been distracted by what are now commonly called the Epstein Files. Unfortunately, this is not the name of a new television program or a new Netflix series. It is short hand for the investigation into the people that may have been involved with an infamous sex trafficker who exploited girls and young women and who died in jail by committing suicide. The news cycles have been full of developments surrounding the evolution of the entire caper and in particular, Trump’s level of involvement with Epstein. The subject repeatedly comes up in Trump’s constant interaction with the press reporters that cover the White House, including during his taxpayer funded — at a cost of at least 10 million dollars — trip to Scotland to promote his businesses and to play golf.

I will attempt to explain the current situation and why it continues to dominate the headlines, but first, I must lament that all of the coverage surrounding the Epstein Files crowds out important developments that impact all of our lives. Trump and his administration continue to implement the tenets of Project 2025 and to attack the First Amendment ability to express one’s beliefs and opinions without fear of retribution. He is systematically going after the media, the education system (especially colleges), law firms, the judiciary and any other person or institution that dares to criticize him. More than that, he is working hard to establish that anything that upsets him, in any form, or that does not reflect his own view of the world is to be attacked, eliminated or otherwise punished unless they bend the knee to his highness. It is pure Mafia tactics. “Nice little university you have there. It would be a shame if anything happened to it.” 220 million dollars and the installation of a government overseer seems to be the current price for getting out from under his attacks. Just ask Columbia University. Or soon, Harvard at a cost of 500 million dollars. Oh, and let’s not forget that Trump demanded that Texas redraw it’s map for districts for the House of Representatives to give the Republicans (MAGA) five new seats — meaning the Democrats lose five — and the state legislature did just that.

I could go on and on. Please keep an eye on the ball as to the destruction of the norms and values of our country as we dive into the abyss of the Epstein Files. I would not go into this territory were it not for the fact that it exposes the dark corners of MAGA land, and for once, it is Trump’s own supporters that will not let it go. It may be the first time that I know about that Trump might not be able to con his way out of trouble. May be.

Jeffrey Epstein was an American financier that ran in the fancy circles of power, money and prestige in the U.S. and elsewhere. He was also perhaps the world’s biggest child sex trafficker. His convicted accomplice is Ghislaine Maxwell, currently serving twenty years in jail for child sex abuse as the recruiter and procurer of under age girls for Epstein. Epstein was first arrested in Florida in 2008 and pleaded guilty to procuring for prostitution a girl under the age of 18. He got what was considered a sweetheart deal of 18 months in the county jail on a work-release program. The prosecutor in that case who agreed to the plea bargain was Alex Acosta who later became Trump’s Secretary of Labor during his first term. Epstein was arrested a second time in New York in 2019 for sex trafficking of minors. He committed suicide in jail while awaiting trial. Please note the dates. Despite Republican politicians attempts to blame Presidents Obama and Biden for the whole mess, note that President George W. Bush was president when Epstein was first arrested and sentenced and Trump was president the second time he was arrested and committed suicide.

Nice people. The evidence suggests that Epstein and Maxwell abused hundreds, perhaps as many as a thousand, young women and girls from around the world. Pure evil. Of Epstein’s many friends, one was Trump as can be seen in many videos and photographs of the two together. To date, no one other than Epstein and Maxwell have been indicted or convicted of partaking in their crimes. However, to many MAGA believers, that is a problem. In their eyes, there must be a massive cover-up. More on that in a moment. Many MAGA podcasters and others spent years focusing on the Epstein case as a major source of criticism of Democrats and the “elite.” Of those people, Pam Bondi, Kash Patel and Dan Bongino were front and center stoking the conspiracies behind the Epstein case. They are now, respectively, the Attorney General of the United States, the Director of the FBI and the Deputy Director of the FBI. They all promised to release any and all documents and information relevant to Epstein and to expose the cover-up for what it was. Ooops. Not so fast. According to the Wall Street Journal there are numerous mentions of Trump in the files. So, the DOJ and FBI announced that there was really nothing of value in the files and therefore they would not be releasing them.

Cue the fire storm. MAGA land went ballistic. Trump had betrayed them. So far, everything that Trump the con man has tried to do to change the subject has either made it worse or did not work as a distraction. Right now the world’s greatest con man is running scared that he cannot change the narrative. Here’s why.

Remember that I do not make this stuff up. I am not sure that my imagination is good enough to come up with the following. From my perspective, there are two levels of MAGA folks that are riled up about the lack of transparency about Epstein. There are the hard core MAGA believers that think the world is run by a cabal of pedophiles that are rich, powerful and secretive. Sometimes referred to as the “elite” sometimes as the “deep state” sometimes both. The deep state is not just the civil servants in the government that always foiled Trump in his first term. They are, but in the sense that they do the bidding of the real deep state that controls all of our lives and are never held accountable. Think Pizzagate in 2016 where code words, satanic symbols and other clues indicated that Democrats (sometimes Hillary Clinton) had a secret underground lair in a neighborhood pizza shop in the Washington D.C. area where pedophiles feasted (in some tellings, literally) on young children. A man from North Carolina shot up the place in an attempt to break up the pedophile ring. (No such ring existed. Only pizza.) These folks think that Epstein was part of that world. (Part of the Trump administration policies and actions is to wrest control of our institutions, government and civilian, in every walk of life, from the elites. He is doing it for his own power, but it satisfies his base to claim he is doing it for them.)

The second level of Epstein conspiracists do not quite match the level of depravity that the hard core believers do. However, they do think that there is a class of people that get away with things that ordinary citizens cannot. The elites control outcomes in many of our lives and the ordinary person cannot catch a break because all of the best outcomes are hoarded and controlled by the elites. Think of it as Pizzagate light. They are not necessarily into the pedophilia and really dark aspects of the really deep conspiracies but they do believe that they never get a fair shot.

Trump promised to expose all of those people controlling the world, expose their networks, their plots and bring them all to justice so that the MAGA faithful will have their retribution (his campaign promise) and finally get a fair chance at “the good stuff.”

He was to be their savior. Thus the Christian overtones and appeals to the Evangelicals. He survived the assassination attempt because God chose him to be the one to bring light to all of the darkest secrets. It gets complicated, but you get the idea.

For him to now say that “there’s nothing to see here, move along” means either that he betrayed the MAGA faithful or that he, in fact, is one of the elites and is trying to protect himself or them or both. He either lied when he said that he would release all of the files or he lied when he said that there is nothing in them. Which then begs the question that his followers now ask, if he lies about this what else is he willing to lie about?

It has taken me quite a while to comprehend all of this. I am not sure that I do now. The attempt to over throw the government? No big deal. Adjudicated sex offender? Rigged. Prices continue to go up? We will survive. The war in Ukraine did not end in 24 hours? Not our problem. I could go on and on but his true blue followers allow or explain away all kinds of things that impact them daily that Trump promised and never delivered. But the Epstein Files? Traitor!! Their existence is at the center of everything they believe and at the center of the way they view the world. If they do not exist then what are they to think?

The con-man-in-chief is now trying to figure a way out. So far, it is not working. It is his supporters that are after him the most. Democrats and other never-Trump folks are happy to keep bringing up the subject but he still cannot assuage his supporters. (The Democrats have to be careful not to pin it all on Trump. They should push to have the files released and then let the chips fall where they may, even if some prominent Democrats or their supporters are revealed in the files.) The Democrats are working to have the files released and have proposed legislation to have it happen. Republicans are caught in a bind. The solution? Shut down the House of Representatives and send every one home until September — even though there was still important work to do — as the Speaker of the House did last week. I guess he hopes that it all blows over by then.

Trump is getting ever more desperate. He is calling the whole thing a hoax — his go-to attack. But if it is a hoax then why did Epstein and Maxwell go to jail? Why have hundreds of victims asked for justice? Then, he tried the move to ask the courts to release the grand jury testimony. I am not an attorney, but my understanding is that only very rarely happens in specific cases and it takes a very long time to make it happen. And that testimony would be very narrow. Only enough to get an indictment on Epstein and Maxwell. It would not include all of those that might be involved. A stalling tactic? We are trying but those darn judges are standing in our way again. Then he sent the Deputy Attorney General of the United States to interview Maxwell over two days at her prison. Also unheard of in proper prosecutorial practice and procedure. By the way, the Deputy AG was Trump’s personal attorney prior to joining the administration and is good friends with Maxwell’s attorney. Coincidence? Oh, and did I mention that Maxwell is a known liar officially charged with perjury? And that Trump keeps hinting about a pardon or commutation for her? Could this be a diversion to make Maxwell’s testimony a substitute for releasing the files? And why has no one asked the victims about all of this? Trump has expressed no concern or empathy for the many victims. Indeed, he speaks about how Epstein “stole” one of “his” employees. According to his own telling, Trump broke up with Epstein for stealing his employees, talking about them as if he owned them. He doesn’t say anything about breaking up with him for what he was doing to the girls. Trump has made many other weird statements that indicate he doesn’t seem upset about what was going on. (One of the employees was a 16 year old girl at the time that worked in Trump’s spa at Mar-a-Lago. Hmmm.)

I have no idea how any of this is going to end. I tend to think that Trump will survive without serious consequences as he has his entire life. But then, he has never been attacked by his own supporters before. Meanwhile, we are all talking (well, a lot of people are talking) about the Epstein Files while Trump and his minions continue to turn our country into an autocracy.