Donald Trump is not yet out of hot water over his 15-year association with sexual predator Jeffrey Epstein and the investigation files that he promised to release. He may be helped by his Maga base’s pathological hatred for the “mainstream media”, notably Rupert Murdoch’s Wall Street Journal. But as a peddler of conspiracy theories himself to damage his enemies, he can hardly complain when his supporters demand more details on this one. And many are certainly doing so.
Trump’s political enemies are happy to stoke the controversy. Some of this may be unfair, given the lack of evidence to date, but they will calculate that any link to Epstein will be damaging for the president, as it has been for so many others.
Last night the US Congress was fighting over whether to seek the release of Epstein files, while a House committee has voted to subpoena Ghislaine Maxwell in a bid to seek information about his activities.
The Journal’s story last week of a lewd letter allegedly sent by Trump to Epstein has prompted the president to sue the paper for defamation and to banish it from the presidential press pool. “The Murdochs’ bizarre assault on the president galvanised his base because of both content and process,” former adviser and key Maga leader Steve Bannon observes. “Now we are united as Trump goes on offence – against the Murdochs, the courts and the deep state.”
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In response to weeks of uproar on social media at the administration’s failure to release the files, Trump ordered his attorney general to seek a court order freeing up some of the secret grand jury testimony on Epstein.
Law enforcement agencies have not accused Trump of any Epstein-related wrongdoing, although reports have emerged in recent days that 1996 efforts to call law enforcement attention to him had implicated Trump.
The president’s base, schooled in lurid conspiracy theory, is unlikely to accept his assurances “that there’s nothing to see here, please move on.” This one still has a way to run.
