Epstein Agonistes

The Trump White House is getting hoisted by its own petard on the Jeffrey Epstein case.

If you are a free subscriber and you like what you’re reading, maybe it’s time to upgrade to a paid subscription.

This newsletter is 100% reader-supported, and your subscription helps me continue publishing.

And if you subscribe today, you get 20% off!

When you become a paid subscriber, you receive access to all my posts, the ability to comment on posts and engage in the Truth and Consequences community, and, above all, you get the warm and fuzzy feeling that comes with supporting independent journalism.

Allow me to state at the outset that, contrary to feverish claims made on the Internets, there is no Epstein client list. Moreover, there are FBI files on Epstein … and they are readily available. You can look at them here … and yes, while they are heavily redacted, that’s mainly to protect Epstein’s victims.

Julie Brown, who broke much of the Epstein story when she was a reporter at the Miami Herald, and has written a book about the disgraced pedophile, sums it up well: “There is no Jeffrey Epstein client list. Period. It's a figment of the internet's imagination -- and a means to just slander people.”

Brown’s view is confirmed by the FBI, which earlier this month released a memo stating unequivocally, after a “systematic review,” no “incriminating ‘client list’” was found. The memo also said, “There was also no credible evidence found that Epstein blackmailed prominent individuals as part of his actions.”

This conclusion has sparked a firestorm among Donald Trump’s political supporters, who, for years, have been told by right-wing commentators and politicians that the Epstein Files contained a treasure trove of incriminating evidence.

Among those right-wing commentators were Kash Patel, who now runs the FBI, and Dan Bongino, who Trump made the agency’s deputy director. Indeed, in May when Bongino and Patel went on TV and said Epstein’s jailhouse death was, in fact, a suicide, they were pilloried … even though it’s likely one of the few times in either of these men’s public careers they were completely sincere.

(Before taking office, Patel claimed that Epstein’s “black book” was “under direct control of the director of the F.B.I” and demanded that Republican members of Congress “put on your big-boy pants and let us know who the pedophiles are.” For his part, Bongino, a leading MAGA influencer who regularly peddled conspiracy theories, like the Epstein files, told his podcast listeners the “Epstein client list is a huge deal…[There is] a reason they’re hiding it.” In right-wing circles, the discourse on Epstein was omnipresent.)

Bondi’s Bobble

But it wasn’t just the right-wing fever swamp that played up the potential of the Epstein Files. It’s also Attorney General Pam Bondi. Back in February, she handed out so-called Epstein binders to a host of MAGA influencers who visited the White House. However, the “declassified” files contained no new information.

JIM WATSON/AFP via Getty Images

After the release boomeranged against her, Bondi then claimed an FBI “source” told her there were thousands of undiscolsed files about Epstein, and she publicly asked Patel to release any remaining “records, documents, audio and video recordings, and materials related to Jeffrey Epstein and his clients, regardless of how such information was obtained.” And on March 14, she did a Fox News interview in which she claimed that the Epstein client list is “sitting on my desk right now.”

Of course, it wasn’t, since no such client list exists.

Bondi also said in May that “There are tens of thousands of videos of Epstein with children or child porn, and there are hundreds of victims.” That too is not correct. No such videos exist, and according to the FBI, Epstein’s victims number in the thousands.

For his part, Patel has repeatedly said that the FBI would release the FBI files, going so far as to claim in May, “I’m not going to withhold information from the American public, ever. … We are diligently working on that, and it takes time to go through years of investigations, years of political maneuvering, and years of cover-up.”

Reap. Sow. Repeat

Now, with the release of the July memo confirming that there is no there, there on the Epstein case, the MAGA backlash has commenced.