A lot of leftwingers are enjoying this. I saw longtime Nothing-to-See-Here Fake Reporter Jake Tapper doing a sudden 180 and demanding a full and vigorous investigation into the Epstein files.
But the left is fishing in already-troubled waters, as MAGA influencers -- political entrepreneurs, mostly -- like Laura Loomer, Steven Bannon, and Tucker Carlson continue stoking suspicions and making insinuations.
Politico:
President Donald Trump faces a fast-metastasizing MAGA rebellion amid fallout over his administration's handling of the files from the criminal investigation into Jeffrey Epstein.
And some of his closest allies are cautioning the situation for the president will get worse before it gets better -- even as it threatens to derail his megabill victory lap and continues to divide parts of his administration and, more broadly, his supporters.
Trump has tried twice in as many days to tamp down his base's anger, posting to Truth Social Saturday that he didn't "like what's happening" among his own supporters. He also threw his support behind Attorney General Pam Bondi, who has taken the brunt of much of the right's ire over the Epstein files. Several news organizations have also reported that Bondi clashed with Deputy FBI Director Dan Bongino over the files.
After disembarking Air Force One Sunday at Joint Base Andrews, Trump faced a question about Bongino, who skipped work Friday. Trump insisted that he's "a very good guy. ... He sounded terrific, actually. No, I think he's in good shape."
Mike Davis, the MAGA legal brawler and occasional Oval Office visitor, has taken up defending Trump's DOJ, said in an interview that "the Trump Justice Department wanted to be fully transparent, but can't." He added: "This is a case of no good deed going unpunished."
Davis argues DOJ can't release more, including that there is grand jury material involved, court records under seal, child pornography involved, the need to protect victims of "heinous crimes," and "unsubstantiated, bogus claims, like we saw during the Kavanaugh proceedings, where you had double and even triple hearsay."
...
The split over Epstein represents one of the biggest rifts within Trump's supporters since the president took office for his second term. On one side are MAGA supporters who push claims that Epstein was murdered in his jail cell and that the disgraced financier had kept a list of high-profile clients. But Trump's DOJ and FBI have concluded that there's no evidence for either.
On Monday morning, the conservative influencer Benny Johnson outlined a four-pronged approach for Trump to fix what he called "the Epstein memo crisis," including calling for a press conference and bringing in former President Bill Clinton for "questioning."
Laura Loomer, the MAGA activist who is influential in Trump's inner circle and visits everyone from Vice President JD Vance to Trump himself, isn't convinced that the president has sufficiently quelled MAGA's frustrations.
"I don't think that just putting out a Truth Social post is going to make this issue go away. It's kind of had a Streisand effect, actually, where people are focusing on this topic a lot more than they were before he posted a Truth Social," Loomer told POLITICO. "I think that it would be wise for the White House to develop some type of a strategy in addressing the base's concerns, so that we can mitigate any fallout or damage done to the Trump administration.
Loomer is also calling for a special counsel appointed to do an independent investigation of the handling of the Epstein files so that people can feel like this issue is being investigated, and perhaps take it out of [Bondi's] hands, because I don't think that she has been transparent or done a good job handling this issue."
ABC "News" was never interested in the Epstein case... until now.
Former New Jersey GOP Gov. Chris Christie says President Trump has "benefited" from and "encouraged" conspiracy theories about Jeffrey Epstein and therefore bears responsibility for the fallout about the now-closed Justice Department probe into the deceased financier and convicted sex-offender.
Trump vowed during his winning 2024 to look into Epstein's death while in jail, now ruled a suicide, and whether he indeed has an incriminating "client list," which the Trump administration says, in fact, does not exist.
Trump MAGA base feels misled and has the largely heaped the criticsm on Attorney General Pam Bondi.
"Well, look, what Donald Trump is learning is when you start the fire, sometimes you can't put it out," Christie, a 2016 GOP presidential candidate and on-again-off-again Trump supporter, told ABC News on Sunday.
"Now, he started this Epstein fire during the campaign and prior to that by alleging that this was all some, you know, Democratic plot, that he was perhaps murdered by former Democratic officeholders, that there were a lot of Democrats who had been down to Jeffrey Epstein's island and all the rest.
"He used that to fire his own base, and he was going to get to the bottom of it, and he was going to release it because he's in -- absolutely in favor of transparency," Christie continued. "Well, now you get into the job and you realize -- you know, 'maybe I don't want to do that.'"
Christie said that Bondi is doing what Trump wants her to.
"And let's be clear about this: Pam Bondi -- there's no chance, in my opinion, that Pam Bondi made this decision on her own. No chance. She was instructed by the White House that we're not releasing this stuff. And that's why he's defending her," Christie said.
Christie also pushed back on the suggestion that it was mostly the people around Trump who were encouraging the conspiracy theories about Epstein.
"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," Christie said.
Gislaine Maxwell says she's willing to testify about Epstein's ring.
Ghislaine Maxwell, the former girlfriend and madame to the late Jeffrey Epstein, is willing to testify before Congress about the Epstein Files, the Daily Mail reported Monday, citing "sources."
"Despite the rumors, Ghislaine was never offered any kind of plea deal. She would be more than happy to sit before Congress and tell her story," a source told the outlet. "She remains the only person to be jailed in connection to Epstein and she would welcome the chance to tell the American public the truth."
Maxwell is currently serving a 20-year prison sentence for sex-trafficking and array of other charges in connection with her procurement of minors for Epstein's pleasure.
She has further cast doubt on the official narrative surrounding Epstein's death, asserting that he was murdered and did not kill himself.
I believe she continues insisting that she did nothing wrong. So I'm not sure how candid her testimony would be.
Trump posted on Truth Social, making the claim -- which cannot be supported -- that the whole Epstein scandal was created by the Clintons and Deep State operatives as some kind of op against him.
This is an ill-advised post by Trump, and a futile effort. Trump has had great sway over his voters, and they have accepted some preposterous claims from him, like that Ron DeSantis was actually a Covid Panican and is a Deep State stooge, just because Trump needed that storyline to be believed for his own purposes.
But he's not going to be able to reverse people's decades-old suspicions about Jeffrey Epstein just by posting "These aren't the files you're looking for." It's a bridge too far.
Obviously it's not true that we're only talking about Epstein because the left invented the scandal -- this has been a major story on the right for years, and Trump has pushed it as a story.
Trump's personal lawyer, then promoted to be US Attorney for NJ, promised "accountability" and the release of all the flight logs, etc.
Megyn Kelly floated the speculation that Biden's people (Obama's people, in other words) rewrote and edited the Epstein files so that they "drew a straight arrow towards Trump," in an effort to booby-trap the files so that Trump would blow himself up were he to release them.
I dunno about that. Ben Shapiro, in that clip, says that he hears from sources close to Bongino and Patel that everything that can be released has been released, and there's just not the evidence of Epstein blackmailing Democrats that we'd all like to see.
Shapiro feels the same way I do: Patel and Bongino have proven themselves completely trustworthy as regards their efforts against the Deep State, and if they say there's no there there (or at least not the "there" we all expected/wanted), then it's hard to conclude they've suddenly become liars in the service of the Deep State.
He also calls for those with suspicions that Trump is covering up to save himself to stop hinting about it, get some balls, and just say it instead of insinuating it.
Here's Jake Tapper, suddenly on the Jeffrey Epstein beat ten years too late, just like he was late on Joe Biden's senility:
I don't know what to think. I don't know if Trump is covering up for someone.
I mean, his name is definitely on Epstein's contact list -- we know they'd interacted in Palm Beach and of course Trump is someone Epstein would be interested in cultivating.
If it's just a matter of Trump's name being in Jeffrey Epstein's contact list -- so what? I know enough people that I can get Trump's phone number and add it to my phone if I really wanted to.
But maybe Trump is very worried that people will think it's more than that.
I know people also suspect that Epstein was a CIA asset, and yeah, that could be, but why would Trump cover up for them, especially if it costs him support from his loyalists? Trump hates the CIA (as well he should). Why would he want to protect them?
Alan Derschowitz says he knows for a fact there are documents naming a lot of names, but most of the people on Epstein's "lists" are completely innocent people he happened to know:
I think a lot of people have the idea that anyone whose phone number Epstein knew must have been some kind of "client," which might trouble Trump about releasing all the information.
Antisemitic firebrand Tucker Carlson, of course, blames Israel, as he blames Israel for everything, including outright controlling the US government and especially its foreign policy establishment.
(An establishment that is even more forward-leaning in their hatred of Israel and suspicions about Jews than Carlson is, of course.)
Conservative media personality Tucker Carlson on Monday challenged former Israeli Prime Minister Naftali Bennett to sit for an interview over Jeffrey Epstein and his ties to the Israeli government after the former world leader denied such allegations.
Carlson, over the weekend, explicitly expressed the belief that Epstein was likely working for Israeli intelligence, citing the testimony of former Trump Cabinet member Alex Acosta saying he was an intelligence asset and Ghislaine Maxwell's known links to the Mossad.
Bennett, in an apparent response, condemned Carlson on X, asserting that he was lying.
"As a former Israeli Prime Minister, with the Mossad having reported directly to me, I say to you with 100% certainty: The accusation that Jeffrey Epstein somehow worked for Israel or the Mossad running a blackmail ring is categorically and totally false," he said.
Despite Tucker Carlson's eagerness to blame everything on the Jews, the Mossad theory can't be outright dismissed -- especially when no other plausible alternative explanation is being offered.
As I've said, I trust Trump on this issue. Mind you, that's not to say I believe everything that he says. I certainly don't believe that this whole controversy was stoked by Hillary and Bill Clinton and the Deep State to damage Trump.
But I trust his overall judgment -- if he thinks this is a sleeping dog best let lie, I do think he's got good reasons for thinking that. I'm not at all satisfied with that -- but I am considering that we are on the verge of a violent civil war so I'm willing to let lesser agenda items slide for the purposes of remaining unified in the face of insurrectionary leftwing violence.
Like I said, I don't know what to think. I did -- I do -- believe that Epstein had underaged girls at his Pedo Island as an inducement for the Great and Good to come to his island, and that he surely exploited these compromised people for his benefit.
Did it rise to the level of actual blackmail? Here's the thing: I know a little about blackmail and it's a hard case to bring. Blackmailers know that what makes it a crime is directly linking their threat to the demand they're making of you, so they never actually put it like that. They will bring up a "favor" they want from you and will say "You know I'm being a good friend to you by not telling anyone what I know," but they avoid saying "Do this favor or I'll reveal what I know."
Blackmail is a tricky crime. It's not illegal to demand $10,000 from someone, particularly when you can invent some spurious grounds for claiming that it's a "debt" that's owed to you. It's also not illegal to tell someone that you intend to go public with the dirty information you know about them. "Journalists" do this every day.
What is illegal is to link the demand to the threat. And that's the only thing that's illegal, the blackmailer making the connection between the two things explicit.
Cops wire blackmail victims to get the blackmailer to make the linkage between demand and threat explicitly on audiotape, and blackmailers continue refusing to make the blackmail threat explicit.
Again, I know. I've seen it. Blackmailers are the lowest of the low, but they do have the minimum necessary intelligence to not say the one thing that makes their demand of a "favor" an actual felony.
So in a legalistic way, I can imagine that Bondi is halfway truthful in saying there is "no evidence of blackmail." No chargeable evidence, that is. Nothing she can bring to a court.
I don't know what happens here. I don't think Trump's stance is politically tenable and I think he'll have to offer something more than what's he's offering now.
It will be interesting to watch these people who make their money playing the Quien Es Mas MAGA? game try to simultaneously insinuate that Trump is a traitor while continuing to grift money as Ultimate MAGA Warriors.
Lara Trump now says that the files will be revealed -- just not yet.
I don't know if people will be satisfied with more promises about what might happen in the future.