Horrifying politically. it will cost the president some Political Capital – but it will not derail his Agenda or Presidency
WASHINGTON, D.C. (Texas Insider Report) — President Trump’s most vociferous media supporters have been in a full meltdown over the administration’s handling of the Jeffrey Epstein case – an obsessive focus of MAGA figures over the years.
And Attorney General Pam Bondi apparently has never heard the adage about "under-promising and over-delivering."
Last week, the DOJ and FBI put out an unsigned two-page statement saying that no additional charges would be filed in the case.
Rather than putting the matter to rest, the memo caused a political uproar and mutual recriminations among top Trump officials.
Thanks in part to Mr. Trump's campaign promises and some of his key Cabinet Members comments the past few months, his supporters had become convinced the president would reveal everything in public about Epstein and his alleged cabal of powerful pedophiles.
Suddenly, the long-held conspiracy theories have become super-fueled by new disappointment.
Who’s to blame?
Everyone who has built vast castles of fantasy atop the Epstein case – including FBI Director Kash Patel and Deputy Director Dan Bongino.
Prior to assuming their current positions, especially Pam Bondi hyped Epstein revelations a few months ago after becoming Attorney General. She seemingly said in numerous TV interviews that she had an Epstein "client list" on her desk. (President Trump himself has talked of releasing the files on Epstein, but voiced reservations about ruining lives with “phony stuff.”)
That was grossly premature conduct, that of course did more to stoke conspiracy theories – when shortly thereafter the government took the position that there was really nothing to see here.
Eventually, Bondi admitted the files she had seen on her desk were the same files that had long been public record – and she asserted that she'd been misled regarding their content.
An investigation was promised, but the fact of the matter is that Bondi promised a major bombshell revelation on one of the biggest scandals and conspiracy theories in recent memory… and she delivered a dud.
It is natural that there are questions surrounding the Epstein case, given his hideous crimes, his lenient treatment by the law 20 years ago, his lavish lifestyle, his association with so many famous and wealthy people, and his death in jail by suicide before he could stand trial.
This doesn’t mean the wild theories about the case are justified.
There is no evidence that there was any “client list” of those partaking of Epstein’s crimes. Nor is there serious evidence that Epstein was murdered, which would have required a Mission Impossible–style operation to fake his suicide behind bars, or that he was, say, an agent of Mossad.
If the Deep State had to make Epstein go away at the behest of a foreign government – or rich and powerful people who shared in his crimes – presumably it wouldn’t have allowed his close associate Ghislaine Maxwell to go to trial when she had every incentive to spill her guts about such nefarious high-level dealings. (She is currently serving 20 years in prison for her involvement in Epstein’s crimes.)
There's also the conspiracy that the Biden White House “disappeared” the evidence? And given the politicized nature of Joe Biden’s DOJ, such a consideration doesn’t appear outside the realm of possibilities.
Speculation that there is something in the Epstein files that would incriminate now President Trump is illogical and falls flat. If such a list does exist and it implicates Mr. Trump, why would the Biden administration not use it in a smear campaign against Trump in 2024? If there was anything incriminating, it would most certainly have been ‘leaked.’”
It’s also hard to believe – if we entertain the conspiracy theorists further – that Kash Patel and Dan Bongino came into office and were instantly co-opted by the alleged conspiracy they so long warned about.
There are now understandable calls for greater transparency.
The rules around grand jury secrecy shouldn’t be broken and care must be taken about revealing the identities of victims and besmirching the reputations of people mentioned incidentally in the vast investigative materials.
Epstein’s former lawyer Alan Dershowitz's own successful lawsuit defending his come comes to mind. Dershowitz points out that it is two Manhattan judges in New York who are suppressing information about the disgraced financier and convicted sex offender’s case, not the Trump Administration.
Bondi should have heeded the DOJ practice of not speaking about cases if charges aren’t going to be brought, and the offense shouldn’t be compounded. Yet, the documents a judge has ordered released in a civil case should be made public expeditiously, and it’s hard to understand why other materials related to the case – including the autopsy report on Epstein – haven’t been released.
President Trump wants the whole thing to go away, and data-testid="standard-link" href="https://x.com/unusual_whales/status/1945178548576125425?s=46" rel="noopener" target="_blank">now blames various of his political adversaries for creating the Epstein files in the first place.
Trump recently told reporters at Joint Base Andrews, Md.: "He's dead for a long time. He was never a big factor in terms of life. ... It's pretty boring stuff. It's sordid, but it's boring. ... Anything that's credible, I would say: Let them have it."
The imbroglio is Trump's biggest split with vocal members of his base since he took office. But perhaps the truth of the matter is that there was never much there to begin with. If that is indeed the case, and the DOJ and FBI report is truthful and accurate, then this whole episode amounts to a significant unforced error.
AG Pam Bondi shouldn’t have hyped the release of materials in the past, and her failure to deliver on the promised evidence of Jeffrey Epstein’s supposed client list is, in other words, the Trump White House's first mistake for its widespread and loyal base.
But despite the natural questions about his hideous crimes, the wild theories aren’t justified.
It’s absolute misdirection for the Trump-hating media and the Woke Left, it is horrifying politically and will no doubt cost the president some of his political capital – but it will not derail Mr. Trump’s agenda or his presidency.
If there’s one over-riding lesson from this episode, it’s that we need less conspiracy-theorizing – not more.
