I don’t know about you, but I’m certainly not going to be taken for another Russiagate ride, particularly now that this new would-be scandal comes with the added bonus of centering on a child sex trafficking operation. No thanks!

The Wall Street Journal on Wednesday ran another story in a week’s time purporting to uncover President Trump’s attempts to conceal the extent of his past relationship with Jeffrey Epstein. This time the paper reported that Trump was informed by Justice Department officials that his name turns up repeatedly in the “Epstein files,” and that the information was relayed to him before his administration announced there would be no more public disclosures on the case.

As a lot of people have already acknowledged, Trump’s name turning up in the file isn’t some shock development given that the public already knew that the two men knew each other personally. And as the Journal itself said, “Being mentioned in the records isn’t a sign of wrongdoing.”

But of course, the point here isn’t to definitively determine whether the president is guilty of wrongdoing. It’s to continue feeding a narrative that he might have and to imply that by declining to endlessly indulge each new accusation related to Epstein, he’s creating more suspicion and thus inviting more scrutiny. Agitate, rinse, and repeat. That’s what happened with Russiagate, and that’s why Trump now, as he did back then, is calling the story a hoax.

I’ve been here before, and I’m not interested. When the Journal has a documented confession or smoking gun photograph proving that Trump partook in Epstein’s misdeeds, or even that he’s trying to hide them for any reason at all, feel free to let me know. But I’m not going to spend years like we did on Russiagate, allowing the dying media to trickle out little suggestions fed to them by unnamed bureaucrats that something is afoul, while proving nothing. Nobody should tolerate it.

On top of the Journal’s report that Trump’s — gasp! — name is in the “files,” the paper also claims to have seen some typewritten letter and doodle-like drawing from Trump to Epstein for the now-dead man’s 50th birthday in 2003. Trump denies that he’s the author, and there’s no proof that he is. Next!

That’s the problem though. There will be a next “exclusive,” and then another and another, each one intended to chip away at Trump’s support and thus his political agenda and ultimately his legacy. You can follow along or skip to the end, at which point you’re likely to see you’ve been had again.

Eddie Scarry is the D.C. columnist at The Federalist and author of "Liberal Misery: How the Hateful Left Sucks Joy Out of Everything and Everyone."