The Epstein Files Could Finally Sink Donald Trump

There is a sickening sense of recognition as Democrats on the House Oversight Committee released a new batch of emails from Jeffrey Epstein and his associates showing that Donald Trump was fully aware of the activities of the pedophile, sex trafficker, and indeed “wasted hours “at Epstein's home with one of Epstein's victims, according to one email from 2011. This is, after all, the same Donald Trump who was Epstein's close friend for more than a decade until a still-inexplicable falling out between them in the mid-aughts. This is the same Trump who creepily lurking in the dressing room about the Miss Teen USA pageant he sponsored, and which even more creepily touted his young daughter's erotic appeal in media interviews. And this is the same Trump who boasted in the infamous Access to Hollywood records that his celebrity granted him the right to walk up to women and “grab them by the pussy” – and who reportedly laughed when Gary Busey accused of the same behavior on the set of his reality show Student. This is the same Trump who was found guilty of sexual assault in E. Jean Carroll's $40 million civil lawsuit alleging he assaulted her in a Manhattan department store dressing room in the 1990s, and was found liable for payments to his former mistress Stormy Daniels for an engineering campaign.

However, Trump's antics with Epstein stand out both because of the sheer depravity that characterized Epstein and his network of human traffickers and because the specter of rampant child sexual predation has been central to MAGA-fueled conspiracy theories, thanks in large part to prominence of QAnon activists in the Trump coalition. The prospect of Congress releasing revelations about Epstein has been a key issue for Republicans since the start of Trump's second term, thanks in large part to the president's own promise during the 2024 campaign to sign up to open Epstein's files.

Having endured a continuous stream of revelations about his predatory sexual past, Trump no doubt calculated that he could once again dissuade his followers from any harmful revelations in the files, dismissing them as yet another “hoax” orchestrated by Democrats seeking to undermine his power. But the narrative of how to get the files released was inconsistent with Trump's usual strategy of denial and conspiracy-mongering.

As pressure mounted to release the files, Trump offered half-hearted advice to his followers to move on; Meanwhile, Epstein's former lover and convicted co-conspirator Ghislaine Maxwell appears to have selectively leaked damaging information about the Trump-Epstein alliance, including information about the president. winking contribution to a book of reviews from influential friends and fellow predators celebrating the sex trafficker's 50th birthday. Even some Republican members of the House have seized on their demands for the files to be released – a prospect that has prompted pro-Quisling MAGA Speaker Mike Johnson to keep the House closed for the past month and a half as its reopening will entail the swearing in of newly elected Arizona Democratic Representative Adelita Grijalva, who represents the tie-breaking 218th vote on the resolution to release the files. (The House is scheduled to reopen today for a vote on the Senate bill to reopen the government, and Johnson will finally have to allow Grijalva to take the oath of office.)

emails posted by Democratic Oversight members highlight the desperate political rationale behind Johnson's counter-efforts. When Epstein first faced federal investigation, he wrote to Maxwell in 2011: “I want you to understand that the dog that didn't bark is Trump. [REDACTED VICTIM’S NAME] spent hours with him in my house, he was never mentioned.” Maxwell's short answer also speaks volumes: “I've thought about it.”

After Trump announced his re-election campaign in 2015, journalist Michael Wolf, who had compiled hundreds of hours of interviews with Epstein, wrote to him warning that CNN planned to question Trump about his ties to Epstein; Epstein asked Wolf how he would prepare a statement on Epstein's behalf after this exchange. Wolf's response once again suggests that the sex trafficker had a wealth of damning information:

I think you should let him hang himself. If he says he wasn't on the plane [Epstein’s private aircraft ferrying underage girls to his island, dubbed the Lolita Express] or into a home, then it gives you valuable PR and political currency. You can hang him in a way that will potentially benefit you in a positive way, or if it really looks like he might win, you can save him by creating debt. Of course, it is possible that, when asked, he will say that Jeffrey Epstein is a great guy, he made a crooked deal and was a victim of political correctness that should be outlawed under the Trump regime.

There is no indication that CNN asked Trump a question about Epstein back then—yet six years after Epstein apparently killed himself in a New York City jail cell, the currency he might have held in Trump's place now seems like an inevitable toxic liability for a president who has survived countless past sex scandals. Shortly before these latest emails emerged, Ghislaine Maxwell had reportedly petitioned Trump to commute her 20-year prison sentence; Epstein's former human trafficking partner is also receiving special treatment behind bars. according to the informant quoted by Democrats on the House Judiciary Committee. Maxwell's previous leaks seem to have been aimed at securing a compensation deal, and she must feel that such a cozy arrangement shouldn't be too much of a stretch given that Trump pardoned many instigators in the election denial campaign that led to the failed coup on January 6. Here, however, Trump has no wiggle room to engineer one of his signature Mafia-style pardon deals; Epstein has arguably become the biggest threat to the current administration. In the court of public opinion, Epstein's epitaph may be that he hanged himself and Donald Trump.