Donald Trump touched down in Scotland last night, the controversy swirling around the so-called ‘Jeffrey Epstein files’ in such hot pursuit that it threatens to disturb what is essentially a five-day golfing holiday and plunge him into something of a pickle.
The President’s MAGA base of true believers refuses to accept the official reasons why the files on the late notorious paedophile can’t be made public.
Nothing Trump does to distract his supporters from the files – and he’s doing a lot – seems to make any difference.
Dead cats are being thrown on the table on an almost daily basis to deflect attention to other matters, yet MAGA’s demand to see the files remains unassuaged. The President is now at risk of being haunted by the scandal.
In an attempt to damp down the rising MAGA anger, he instructed the Justice Department to seek publication of testimonies given to grand juries in the Epstein case. He did so knowing no judge was ever likely to grant such a request since the confidentiality of grand jury proceedings (held to determine if a case should go to trial) is rigorously guarded.
This week, a judge predictably refused the request. For a President who has regularly scolded the judiciary it was amusing to see that sometimes judges do indeed serve a useful purpose.
Trump could not be blamed for the transcripts remaining sealed – but sealed they remained.
Tulsi Gabbard, the President’s strange director of national intelligence, was next up in the deflection stakes, with cockamamie claims accusing ex-President Obama of treason during Russia’s efforts to meddle in the 2016 presidential election.
The President’s MAGA base of true believers refuses to accept the official reasons why the files on the late notorious paedophile can’t be made public, writes Andrew Neil
Trump beamed – Gabbard is ‘hot’, he exclaimed – and for a moment the media was intrigued. But when she failed to produce any firm evidence, the media and the MAGA base moved on.
So back to the Justice Department. The deputy attorney general Todd Blanche was dispatched to Florida this week to interview Ghislaine Maxwell, daughter of the late media robber baron Robert Maxwell. She is spending 20 years in a federal penitentiary for sex trafficking minors on Epstein’s behalf.
The Trump administration wanted to give the impression it was still serious about bringing fresh facts to light about anyone complicit in Epstein’s crimes.
If she ‘has information about anyone who has committed crimes against victims’, said the deputy attorney general, who happens to be Trump’s former personal lawyer, ‘then the FBI and the Justice Department will hear what she has to say’.
Others pointed out that the FBI would have gone down that route multiple times before putting her on trial.
So Trump reverted to an old song – bashing the independent chairman of the Federal Reserve, Jerome Powell, for not cutting interest rates. This week he attacked him in person for allowing a Fed building to go way over budget. As the cameras rolled he pulled out a piece of paper to prove his case. Turns out Trump had the wrong figures.
Even worse, in a battle for MAGA’s attention the supposed inadequacies of the Fed chairman are no match for the unknown contents of the Epstein files
Fresh revelations of Trump’s friendship with Epstein continued to make uncomfortable reading for the President. Even though, in the grand scheme of things, they are of marginal significance, they raise MAGA suspicions that perhaps their hero is not being as forthcoming as he should.
Last week, the Wall Street Journal reported Trump had sent a somewhat inappropriate message and drawing to Epstein on his 50th birthday. The Journal described the drawing as the outline of a naked woman with Trump’s handwritten signature below her waist suggestive of pubic hair.
Fresh revelations of Trump’s friendship with Epstein raise MAGA suspicions that perhaps their hero is not being as forthcoming as he should, says Andrew Neil
The embattled President dismissed the story, inevitably, as ‘fake news’ and sued the paper and proprietor Rupert Murdoch (ironically Trump’s biggest media cheerleader via his TV network Fox News) for $10billion (£7.4billion).
Undeterred, the Journal reported on Wednesday that his attorney general, Pam Bondi, told Trump in May that his name appeared regularly in the Epstein files. It’s hardly a surprise since it’s well-documented the two socialised together in New York and Palm Beach in the 1990s and early 2000s (the friendship ended in some acrimony about 20 years ago, before Epstein’s first conviction for the sexual abuse of a minor). But it was a further embarrassment as Trump had denied being told any such thing by his attorney general.
Then Thursday’s New York Times reported it had seen the list of contributors to Epstein’s 50th birthday book and Trump’s name was on it (as was Peter Mandelson’s, intriguingly). Suddenly the Journal story didn’t look at all like fake news.
Even more suddenly, Trump’s hopes of burying the story were smashed when the first episode in a new season of South Park, the irreverent cartoon series, was aired this week, mercilessly skewering Trump for his Epstein links.
The White House couldn’t contain its anger, claiming the show had ‘not been relevant for 20 years’. In truth, the Trump-Epstein saga, thanks to South Park, has now entered popular culture. The disillusion of the true believers is palpable. Influential pro-Trump podcasters are turning on the President. One said his reasons for not publishing the Epstein files were ‘insulting our intelligence’. Another claimed Trump is ‘destroying his entire base by just dismissing [the Epstein files] and closing the case’.
A third turned on US Vice President JD Vance for insisting the Epstein files should be released during the campaign then running for cover once in power. ‘What changed?’ he asked dismissively.
Meanwhile, Right-wing commentator Anne Coulter asked: ‘Why is Trump blowing up his base to protect child predators?’
That said, the reasons why the Justice Department and FBI have determined no further disclosure is appropriate are respectable.
‘Sensitive information relating to the victims [of Epstein] is intertwined throughout the materials,’ they said.
‘This includes specific details such as victim names and likenesses, physical descriptions, places of birth, associates and employment history.’ Much of the evidence is sealed by court order and ‘no further disclosure’ of the Epstein files was ‘appropriate or warranted’.
The statement was anonymous but comes with the imprimatur of Bondi and Kash Patel, the director of the FBI.
Bondi is a Trump sycophant who once boasted intelligence on Epstein was coming in by ‘the truckload’. Patel, another member of the Trump faithful, has long been one of many touting Epstein conspiracy theories.
For these two to see no purpose in publishing information that would hurt victims should cut some ice with the MAGA base. But it doesn’t.
‘No matter how much success we have had, securing the Border, deporting Criminals, fixing the Economy, Energy Dominance, a Safer World where Iran will not have Nuclear Weapons, it’s never enough for some people,’ Trump whinged this month on social media as it began to dawn on him he’d unleashed forces he can’t control.
Until very recently it was said the MAGA base would follow wherever Trump led. Bombing Iran, restoring military supplies to Ukraine, recommitting to NATO – they all gave MAGA palpitations but it went along.
Now, on a matter not of great policy but of something far more important to MAGA – a conspiracy theory – there is dissension in the ranks.
And even Trump, reaping what he’s sowed, is struggling to contain it.
