MAGA compels a retreat on Epstein files

After months of resisting pressure to release files related to the case of the late sex offender Jeffrey Epstein, President Donald Trump has abruptly reversed himself and said he would sign a bill to compel the Justice Department to release all the materials (something he has always had the power to order). There is no question that his about-face is due to a growing revolt in usually loyal Republican ranks — and among his own hardcore political base. It’s too early to tell whether this controversy will cause an implosion in the "Make America Great Again" movement that brought Trump to power. But if it does, there will be a karmic irony in it.

With the bill certain to clear the House, we still don’t know whether the Epstein files implicate Trump in any wrongdoing. But revelations from the past few weeks have certainly highlighted the fact that Trump once enjoyed a close relationship with the disgraced financier who pleaded guilty to paying a minor for sex in 2008 and died by suicide in jail in 2019 after his arrest on new federal charges of sexual trafficking of minors. Some evidence, including a creepy birthday card Trump attempted to disavow, suggests Trump knew about Epstein’s preference for underage girls.

As many have pointed out, Trump has been consistently acting as if he had something to hide. Besides pressure on congressional Republicans not to release the files — and the vilification of those who dissented — there’s the fact that imprisoned Epstein accomplice Ghislaine Maxwell was moved to a much more pleasant federal facility in apparent exchange for testimony favorable to Trump.

The impression that damaging Trump/Epstein revelations are coming is heightened by the fact that some Trump loyalists in the right wing media have been trying to minimize Epstein’s crimes, pointing out that his alleged victims were not small children but teenagers. The charge to which Epstein pleaded guilty involved a 17-year-old. But many other complaints involved victims as young as 13 and 14.

One reason MAGA is reeling is that, for a large chunk of that world, child sexual abuse among the elites has been an obsession. A number of pro-Trump activists and pundits have a background in "Pizzagate," the 2016 conspiracy theory claiming that Hillary Clinton and some of her top staffers were involved in a child rape and torture ring operating out of a Washington pizza restaurant. This wild falsehood helped birth "QAnon," an even bigger conspiracy theory positing a global cabal of rich-and-famous pedophiles Trump was supposedly working to expose.

Epstein’s suicide, and his well-known acquaintance with former President Bill Clinton, fed further rumors. Under Joe Biden’s presidency, numerous pro-Trump activists and politicians — including current Vice President JD Vance — insinuated that failure to release the Epstein files suggested a concerted effort to cover up information implicating top Democrats.

In February, shortly after Trump’s inauguration, Attorney General Pam Bondi announced on television that the client list for Epstein’s sex-trafficking ring was "sitting on [her] desk." Yet the declassified "Epstein files" released with great fanfare later that month were a dud.

Ever since, discontent in MAGA ranks has been growing; now, it has cost Trump one of his top allies, Rep. Marjorie Taylor Greene (R-Ga.). Trump’s attempt to redirect the Epstein investigation to Democrats looks like a transparent dodge.

Is Trump guilty of anything worse than hobnobbing with an elite criminal whose circle included far too many other prominent men and women? Maybe not. But if a baseless conspiracy theory drags him down, one can see it as poetic justice.

Opinions expressed by Cathy Young, a writer for The Bulwark, are her own.

By Cathy Young

Cathy Young is a writer for The Bulwark.