Amid all of the controversies of President Donald Trump’s second time period up to now, the one that could be inflicting him the most important issues amongst his right-wing base is a few man who died six years in the past: Jeffrey Epstein.
Epstein, the well-connected financier who was indicted for intercourse trafficking underage ladies and died in jail in 2019, has been an obsession on the proper ever since. On-line MAGA influencers and Fox commentators have speculated for years that Epstein might need been murdered, that he was blackmailing highly effective folks, and that the US authorities is hiding info that might reveal what actually occurred.
In 2024 and the preliminary months of 2025, Trump allies like Pam Bondi and Kash Patel — the present lawyer basic and FBI director, respectively — performed to the bottom and egged on these theories, promising to launch the “Epstein Information.”
However now they will’t — or gained’t — ship.
On Monday, the Justice Division and FBI launched a memo saying, principally, that they’ve obtained nothing. The memo says that, after a evaluation, they discovered no Epstein “shopper checklist” and no “credible proof” that he blackmailed folks. The memo additionally restated the FBI’s conclusion that Epstein killed himself.
Key right-wing influencers reacted with fury, despair, or contempt – refusing to simply accept the administration’s assurances that there’s nothing to see right here.
Trump was deeply irritated to be requested about this by a reporter on Tuesday. “Are you continue to speaking about Jeffrey Epstein?” he snapped. Insisting there have been way more necessary issues within the information, he continued: “That’s unbelievable. I can’t consider you’re asking a query on Epstein.”
In fact, Epstein has lengthy been a clumsy matter for Trump, contemplating that they have been pleasant, that they’ve been photographed collectively, and that Trump instructed a reporter Epstein was a “terrific man” who appreciated girls “on the youthful facet” all the best way again in 2002. (These connections have been resolutely ignored by on-line proper influencers.)
Including to the awkwardness, when Elon Musk fell out with Trump final month, Musk claimed that Trump was “within the Epstein Information” and that “that’s the actual purpose they haven’t been made public.” (Ordinarily, the accusation from a prime presidential adviser that the president was implicated in intercourse trafficking underage ladies can be a huge scandal, however Musk does are inclined to make issues up.)
The concept that Trump could possibly be protecting up his personal Epstein-related crimes makes the proper really feel so uncomfortable that they’ve largely dismissed it. Many favor to speculate that Epstein has ties to intelligence businesses — both within the US or Israel — that the federal government doesn’t need to disclose.
However in the event you’re a right-winger deeply purchased into the idea that there have to be extra to the story, there are actually solely two potentialities: Both Trump, Bondi, and Patel are dupes getting snowed by the deep state, or they’re realizing individuals within the cover-up.
Why the proper is so fixated on Jeffrey Epstein
Epstein was a really rich financier who had a number of well-known buddies, whom he usually flew on his planes to his non-public island. He was additionally repeatedly accused, in prison and civil proceedings, of intercourse trafficking and sexually abusing underage ladies, together with some as younger as 14. A brush with the regulation over this within the mid-2000s led to what was later derided as a sweetheart plea deal, however in July 2019, Epstein was arrested once more — after which discovered useless in his cell the next month, in what authorities stated was a suicide.
The documented story of Epstein is weird and damning as it’s. However on each the left and the proper, many have insisted the conspiracy should go far deeper. Did Epstein have secret sexual blackmail materials on highly effective and influential folks — politicians, celebrities — who have been additionally concerned in abusing underage ladies? How did he make his cash? Was he working with US or overseas intelligence providers? Was he truly murdered in a shadowy conspiracy to forestall him from telling what he knew?
Particularly, the net proper has fixated on what they seek advice from because the “Epstein checklist” — an imagined doc supposedly itemizing well-known individuals who have been co-conspirators in his intercourse crimes. The web proper hoped this could be the promised smoking gun that can indisputably reveal that their political enemies are perverted criminals, disgracing them endlessly and sure main them to be arrested.
As such, it’s the most recent variation of the “QAnon” principle, which argued that proof of a deep-state conspiracy to guard Democratic pedophiles was imminent. (Democrats’ hopes for a Trump “pee tape” could possibly be stated to serve an analogous position.)
Darkish allusions to this principle are a confirmed technique for aspiring MAGA influencers in search of on-line engagement. When JD Vance launched his political profession in 2021, he tweeted: “Keep in mind once we discovered that our wealthiest and strongest folks have been related to a man who ran a literal little one intercourse trafficking ring? After which that man died mysteriously in a jail? And now we simply don’t speak about it.”
Why Trump’s group retains screwing this up
Epstein first grew to become an issue for Trump this 12 months again in February, when Bondi hyped an imminent launch of Epstein-related info. When a Fox host requested her if she’d launch “the checklist of Jeffrey Epstein’s shoppers,” Bondi answered, “It’s sitting on my desk proper now, to evaluation.”
Bondi then invited right-wing influencers to the White Home and gave them binders marked “The Epstein Information: Section 1” — however the information turned out to comprise no new or related info, and definitely no shopper checklist. Widespread bipartisan mockery ensued on social media.
As a part of Bondi’s injury management, her group put out a letter to Patel, during which Bondi claimed she’d requested for all of the Epstein paperwork, however had been belatedly tipped off that the FBI’s New York area workplace was withholding 1000’s of pages. Bondi demanded they be handed over, and ordered Patel “to conduct a direct investigation into why my order to the FBI wasn’t adopted.”
Months later, it’s clear that this, too, was BS.
And now, Bondi’s DOJ and Patel’s FBI have claimed they don’t have any such shopper checklist. When Bondi was requested Tuesday about her outdated declare on Fox that the checklist was “on her desk,” she stated she was simply referring to the Epstein Information typically, and never a shopper checklist particularly.
The best and most boring rationalization for what occurred right here is that they actually do don’t have anything. That the federal government shouldn’t be sitting on bombshell intel as a part of an enormous cover-up of some secret Epstein conspiracy. That, when Bondi and Patel implied in any other case, they have been pandering to the bottom, genuinely misinformed, or each.
“While you’re a podcast visitor or a podcast host, you may make a bunch of untamed claims that you just suppose are most likely true, no matter, it’s simply content material,” conservative activist Will Chamberlain posted on X. “While you’re a high-ranking official within the FBI, it’s not so easy.”
Not everyone seems to be happy with that. “The Epstein case isn’t over,” Glenn Beck wrote. “It’s the Rosetta Stone of public belief. And if we don’t unravel it, we’ll by no means restore what’s already been misplaced.”