‘A hot mess’: Trump can’t escape Epstein as MAGA anger grows

Whatever the US President tries, he can’t shut down talk among his MAGA base about the Epstein files – and his own side’s growing anger has him spooked.

A message calling on President Donald Trump to release all files related to Jeffrey Epstein is projected onto the US Chamber of Commerce building across from the White House in Washington DC. Picture: AFP

A rare update on President Trump’s health. Warnings of a stockmarket crash over his threats to sack the chairman of the US Federal Reserve. The dispatch of Patriot missiles to Ukraine. New allegations of an “Obama administration conspiracy” to stage a coup after the 2016 election. A change to the recipe of Coca-Cola. The abrupt firing of the daughter of one of the president’s enemies, the former FBI boss James Comey.

These are just some of the headlines that Trump and his team have generated over the past fortnight. But none of them has dominated for much more than a single news cycle. Why? The Epstein files.

Washington cannot stop talking about the deceased financier: was the convicted sex offender murdered to protect the secrets of his many famous acquaintances? Where is the list of his clients? Who is behind the cover-up? What does Trump really know and how close was his friendship with Jeffrey Epstein? Is all of this good for the Democrats?

Try as he might, the president can’t find a way to change the conversation. “He’ll have to invade Greenland next,” says one exasperated Republican. A Trump sympathiser sighs: “It’s a hot mess.”

Two weeks after the Department of Justice and the FBI released a memo saying Epstein killed himself while in prison awaiting trial and there was no “client list”, the story has gathered pace. Now Republicans and Democrats alike are voicing concern about an alleged cover-up.

For Trump’s base, it is the purity test that shows whether you are a prisoner of the establishment or prepared to stand up against it.

Deep state test

Belief in the Epstein conspiracy is the test case in their dislike of the deep state. For old-school Republicans, Trump’s response to it is an unforced error that poses electoral risk. For Democrats, it’s the first political skirmish in some time that has made the president sweat.

“Everybody loves a conspiracy theory and nobody loves the facts that contradict the conspiracy theory,” Epstein’s former lawyer, Alan Dershowitz, tells me. This week he attempted to clarify some details in an op-ed declaring “there is really nothing much to see here”. It hasn’t convinced everyone. “Some people are saying ‘Thank you for straightening things out’ and others are saying, ‘Oh my God, you’re covering for Donald Trump’,” he says.

What at first glance may have appeared a rather frivolous story has turned into a complicated political dance with the potential to have affect vital mid-term congressional elections next year.

After spending days describing the topic as “BORING”, Trump finally changed tack on Thursday in the face of mounting complaints from his own side.

The US President has ordered US Attorney General Pam Bondi to release “pertinent” grand jury testimony on Epstein. Picture: AFP

In response to what he called the “ridiculous amount of publicity” given to Epstein, he ordered his attorney-general, Pam Bondi, to “produce any and all pertinent grand jury testimony” (the word “pertinent” is potentially doing a lot of work there).

That announcement came after a Wall Street Journal report claimed that before he became president, Trump had contributed a lewd letter to Epstein’s 50th birthday book.

In response, a furious Trump, who denounced the letter as a fake, has filed a $US10 billion libel case against the newspaper, its publisher, Dow Jones, and its parent company, News Corp (publisher of The Times and The Sunday Times). A Dow Jones spokeswoman said: “We have full confidence in the rigour and accuracy of our reporting, and will vigorously defend against any lawsuit.”

Trump’s claim was lodged with a federal court in Miami, at the heart of the president’s Florida power base.

“Offence, for Trump, is always the best fighting position,” Steve Bannon, the former Trump adviser and figurehead in the Maga movement, tells me.

Epstein questions continue

But the president’s Epstein problem is far from over: questions are growing.

“It’ll never go away,” says Dershowitz, who is reported also to have written Epstein a 50th birthday note for the book.

“A number of the conspiracies won’t go away, because they all have a little bit of a basis. Dr Michael Baden, who’s one of the great forensic pathologists of the age, said that he doesn’t think it was suicide. Alex Acosta [the US attorney who served as Trump’s labour secretary from 2017 to 2019] said he was told that Epstein worked for [Israeli] intelligence. I don’t believe that, but remember that Ghislaine Maxwell, his former girlfriend, her father [Robert Maxwell] did work, probably, for Mossad. So there are kernels for each of the conspiracy issues, but not enough to justify any of them.”

While Trump’s approval ratings remain steady among Republicans, polling on his handling of the Epstein files is not exactly rosy. A YouGov/Economist survey found that 81 per cent of those who voted for Kamala Harris and 59 per cent of Trump voters believe the government is covering up Epstein evidence.

When voters were asked how much Trump knew about crimes Epstein may have committed prior to the allegations going public, 40 per cent of respondents said “a lot” while 17 per cent said “some”.

Elected Republicans privately fear repercussions at the ballot box.

“They feel it is something existential,” says a senior Republican. “They are trying to work out how to cover themselves, as they do not trust Trump. They don’t trust that he’s not in the files and they don’t trust that he won’t change his mind.”

House Speaker Mike Johnson wants the files released. Picture: Getty Images via AFP

Mid-terms in the mix

The House Speaker, Mike Johnson, has called for the files to be released, while Thomas Massie, a Republican critic of Trump, is urging voters to “keep the pressure on, it’s working … we want all the files”.

Trump does not need to seek re-election himself, unlike the senators and congressmen and women nervously eyeing the mid-terms. It has not gone unnoticed in the Republican Party that JD Vance, the vice-president and favourite to succeed Trump, kept a low profile last week as the president lashed out at his “weakling” MAGA supporters for raising their concerns.

“He only started speaking when it became a fight with the media,” observes one Republican insider.

Meanwhile, the opposition is learning to embrace the Epstein scandal.

Senior Democrats had previously been quick to dismiss talk of a conspiracy, but over the past few days have started calling for the release of the files.

To many, it is a little cynical. “Both sides have been acting in bad faith. They all know there’s nothing here and they’re all trying to make political hay out of it,” says Dershowitz.

Matthew Boyle of the conservative media outlet Breitbart, which has close links to the administration, adds: “The same Democrats that are out there waxing poetic about this right now are the ones that were covering this up for years.”

Democrats privately admit this is not so much a grand strategy as an attempt to “throw spaghetti at the wall and see what sticks”.

“We’ll take anything at this point,” says one Washington Democrat, as a new poll finds views of the Democratic Party are at their lowest in three decades. “Even if it doesn’t help with votes, the Maga infighting could have long-term consequences.”

James Johnson of the polling firm JL Partners suggests the party ought not place too much hope in the debacle: “The average voter is going to judge [Trump] on the economy, the border and their healthcare – not issues that only excite those tethered to social media.”

The persistence of the scandal so far stems partly from the perception that Trump and his team have changed sides.

FBI director Kash Patel has spoken of an Epstein conspiracy. Picture: AP

The president was among those to raise the hopes of Epstein conspiracists during the election, suggesting the release of more files could happen under his watch. The head of the FBI, Kash Patel, previously spoke of an Epstein conspiracy, while Bondi appeared on Fox News claiming the client list – which she now says does not exist – was on her desk.

“They put themselves out on a limb during the campaign and the years building up to it,” says an old-school Republican. “They know you can’t just release the files. It would be beyond the pale. But they’ve said to the contrary on podcasts to play to the base and [have] put themselves in a terrible position.”

A cottage industry of Maga influencers with podcasts and YouTube shows have their own stake and interest in keeping the Epstein saga going too.

It means that even if some files were released, Trump risks falling short when it comes to the party faithful - and the wider public.

As Dershowitz says of Epstein: “He was a relatively easy client while he was alive. Once he died, he became the hardest client in the world.”

Trump knows exactly where he is coming from.

THE SUNDAY TIMES