Lewd Acts at the Megachurch

The Epstein Scandal in Context, Part 1

There are a whole lot of photos like this.

I had not expected to have to write about the Jeffrey Epstein case, which seemed to have been mostly settled years ago with Epstein’s death in prison and the conviction of his accomplice Ghislaine Maxwell. I actually did a quick search of my site to look for any mentions of Jeffrey Epstein in prior newsletters and came up with nothing.

But Donald Trump and his supporters have been working to keep the scandal alive. Trumpism depends to a large extent on the idea that “the elites”—a vague and elastic category that sometimes includes wealthy people and sometimes includes anyone who went to college—are conspiring against the common man. A key element of that outlook is the theory that these elites are sexual predators secretly preying upon children.

This was expressed in the QAnon conspiracy theory, but in the Epstein case, there was no need for a theory. And Trump’s handling of the case has gotten him caught in a trap of his own making.

The case has been in the news a lot recently, but here’s a quick refresher just in case. Financier Jeffrey Epstein and his girlfriend Ghislaine Maxwell had a bizarre partnership in which Maxwell befriended teenage girls, brought them to Epstein’s mansion, and then helped lure them or pressure them into providing sexual services for herself and Epstein. There is also some testimony from Epstein’s victims that he provided access to these underage girls for rich and powerful friends whose favor he was cultivating. That’s why many of Trump’s supporters called for a full release of files from the investigation, and Attorney General Pam Bondi claimed in February that Epstein’s supposed “client list” was already on her desk ready for release.

But the news recently broke that in May, Bondi briefed Trump that his own name appears in the Epstein files. It’s unclear in exactly what context he mentioned, since his social association with Epstein—a fellow billionaire in Palm Beach, Florida—was already well-known. But after this, Trump’s approach suddenly reversed. The administration said it wouldn’t release the files, there was no “client list” of people to whom Epstein provided girls, and the files were “made up” by the Obama and Biden administrations in the first place. In actual fact, neither of those two presidents was in office at the time the FBI compiled the files.

I have no specific reason for thinking Trump appears in an incriminating context in those files. See an overview from a lawyer for one of Epstein’s victims, who describes how Epstein abused young women on a massive scale—but mostly for his own benefit, to feed his own sexual mania. And yet, he adds: “There were occasions where a select few of these men engaged in sexual acts with a select few of the girls that Jeffrey Epstein was exploiting or abusing—primarily girls who were over the age of 18.” There are just enough caveats there to provide some scope for incrimination of Epstein’s associates. Maybe Trump was one of them, maybe he wasn’t. And even if the women were over 18, that would be a scandal even if it isn’t a crime.

But the weird thing is that Trump has been acting as if he’s guilty as hell.