Will The Epstein Scandal Force MAGA Rubes To Confront Reality?
The editors of the Wall Street Journal editorial page would very much like to see the Epstein matter resolved. Acknowledging that kooks who are actually in charge in Trump's Justice Department, they pine that perhaps "Ms. Bondi and Mr. Patel could call a news conference, provide context on the mentions of Mr. Trump, and explain why releasing raw files could do more harm than good."
The Journal editorial board is engaged in denial. Kash Patel and Pam Bondi cannot conceivably hold the kind of press conference the editors are fantasizing about because they, among others holding high government offices, are key propagators of the Epstein and other conspiracies. Conspiracies are their calling card. Only in the last few weeks has Trump become the victim of one.
FBI Director Kash Patel spread the fiction that the 2020 election was stolen by Italian satellites, claimed that Jan. 6 was an inside job, and proclaimed, "There's a lot of good to a lot of (Qanon.)" Attorney General Pam Bondi maintains that Trump won Pennsylvania in 2020; she was also one of a team of lawyers in Trump's first impeachment who circulated the idea that Ukraine, not Russia, interfered with the 2016 election, and she told the world in March that she had the Epstein files on her desk.
Even as the Epstein story was creating heartburn in the White House, Team Trump's response was to immediately turbocharge another conspiracy — that Barack Obama committed treason — to distract and feed the beast they have created.
The heart of the MAGA message is that Trump's opponents are not just wrong, but part of a vast conspiracy to commit pretty much the worst crime most people can imagine. As self-styled anti-censorship activist Mike Benz explained, belief in a widespread pedophile cult helped to birth the MAGA movement. "You trained us to go after this issue. We have been grown in a lab. Chemicals have been mixed together specifically to breed this particular type of person in the MAGA movement who would care about Jeffrey Epstein."
At this point, it's not even clear that those with access to the government's information can distinguish between their imaginings and actual facts. Bondi pulled hundreds of prosecutors and other Justice Department officials from work on other crimes to scour the Epstein files for the mother lode of revelations about a "client list" and the participation of major Democrats and Hollywood elites in Epstein's evil abuse.
To be clear, there is no question that Epstein committed terrible crimes, and his closeness to wealthy and powerful people is disturbing. But that's not what the MAGA forces conjured in their febrile imaginations. They had visions of a client list containing names like Chuck Schumer, Alexandria Ocasio Cortez, Nancy Pelosi, George Clooney and Hillary Clinton (as well as Bill, of course). A steady diet of slander and deception has led them to believe everyone in public life they disagree with on policy must be implicated in this repulsive conduct.
But after the weeks-long search, Justice Department investigators apparently found little more than what was already known, which led to furious finger-pointing. Bondi blamed Patel for withholding documents while FBI Deputy Director Dan Bongino pouted that he was so worried about disappointing his mouth-breathing fans that he could not report to work. Then Bondi and Patel had the unenviable task of reporting to Trump that the most famous name their record searches yielded was his own — which is not surprising considering the 15-year Trump-Epstein friendship.
And so the MAGA revolution is eating its own.
Lest we get too excited and imagine that imminent revelations about Trump's participation in Epstein's crimes would spell his political downfall, let's recall that Trump was able to persuade Republicans in 2016 that he was best situated to take on the corruption in American politics because he had played the game himself.
There is no evidence that Trump is a pedophile. On the other hand, there is evidence that he took a very latitudinarian attitude toward Epstein's conduct, smirking about how they shared a love of beautiful women and that Epstein liked them on the "younger side."
Trump's later-concocted story about banning Epstein from Mar-A-Lago because he was a "creep" was an obvious post-hoc gloss. He and Epstein were close enough to jet back and forth between Palm Beach and New York together on Epstein's plane and to hold parties with "calendar girls" at which the two men were the only other guests. Does it seem in character for Trump to exclude someone for moral turpitude? No, their relationship ruptured because of a bitter competition over the auction of a Palm Beach estate ironically titled Maison de l'Amitie (House of Friendship).
The most cleansing outcome of this scandal would be for the MAGA faithful to be brought face-to-face with what lying, shameless lowlives the Trump crowd are. It would be a teachable moment if they were to see with their own eyes that the elaborate tales of pedophilia were all "boob bait for Bubba"; that it was all lies all the time. That, not pinning hopes of finding a smoking gun about Trump's behavior, is the very best reason to release as many of the files as possible.
Mona Charen is policy editor of The Bulwark and host of the "Beg to Differ" podcast. Her latest book is Hard Right: The GOP's Drift Toward Extremism.
Reprinted with permission from Creators.
