Look, it may never amount to anything more than a temporary distraction from the frustration and horror brought on by a racist, incompetent federal administration that is sliding deeper and deeper into all-out authoritarianism — but it’s been amusing watching the MAGA world crash out over the White House’s handling of the imfamous (and possibly mythical, but maybe not because why is everyone sooo nervous?) client list of late sex offender Jeffrey Epstein.
President Donald Trump, Attorney General Pam Bondi, and other members of the contemptible Caucasian clown car that is the Trump administration have been scrambling to deal with the MAGA fallout of Trump trying his best to dismiss the Epstein files as a “hoax” after Bondi said, in February, that the files were sitting on her desk, which happened before the Justice Department claimed they didn’t exist, which happened after Bondi calimed the FBI was pouring through “truckloads” of evidence previously withheld by the Biden administration (but before she agreed with the DOJ that they didn’t exist), which happened before Trump essentialy claimed they didn’t exist but, if they do, it’s somehow Obama’s fault. (This is clearly a White House full of stable geniuses who communicate well.)
I’m not sure why Trump and his people thought that the MAGA world — which is largely comprised of people who treat substanceless conspiracy theories like they’re Bible verses, because that’s what you do when you don’t actually know things — wouldn’t lose it over this, but, apparently, they are. (Alex Jones has, predictably, been running wild with it.)
From The Guardian:
Trump’s former vice-president, Mike Pence, told CBS News on Wednesday that “I think the time has come for the administration to release all of the files regarding Jeffrey Epstein’s investigation and prosecution”, while the conspiracy theorist Laura Loomer, a frequent close adviser to Trump, called for the appointment of a special counsel to handle the Epstein files investigation. “Obviously, this is not a complete hoax given the fact that [Epstein associate] Ghislaine Maxwell is currently serving 20 years in prison in Florida for her crimes and activities with Jeffrey Epstein, who we know is a convicted sexual predator,” she said.
The podcast host Theo Von, who attended Trump’s inauguration and told Fox News it was “inspiring”, commented “yeah what changed” on a video of the vice-president, JD Vance, appearing on Von’s show in 2024 and calling for the full Epstein list to be released.
Even some of Trump’s most loyal allies in Congress say they are not satisfied by his decision to not release additional files from the Epstein case.
Senator Josh Hawley questioned the justice department’s claims about the files, saying: “I think it is maybe a little difficult to believe the idea that DoJ and the FBI … don’t have any idea who Epstein’s clients were”, and called for Maxwell to testify.
MAGA supporters are even out here burning their MAGA hats on video to show their displeasure with Trump and pals.
Any other time, Rep. Marjorie Taylor Greene would weat Trump’s hind parts as a hat without even wrapping them in tinfoil first, but when the DOJ announced earlier this month that no further disclosures would be “appropriate or warranted” when it came to Epstein, Greene caleed the dicision “a full reversal on what was all said beforehand,” and declared that “people are just not willing to accept it.”
“I don’t accept it, and I don’t think anyone else should accept it,” she said during a recent interview, according to the New York Times. “I just think that it’s a punch in the gut when regular people go to jail all the time, when they mess up and do something wrong, and then it always seems the rich, powerful elites escape.”
So, now Trump and his minions are on damage control.
Trump recently praised Bondi for her (non)handling of the Epstein file (non)release, and he said she should release “whatever she thinks is credible” of the alleged (or un-alleged?) Epstein list. He also defaulted to deflection and finger-pointing at anyone but himself.
“And I would say that, you know, these files were made up by Comey, they were made up by Obama, they were made up by the Biden [administration],” Trump said, despite the fact that Epstein was was arrested and unalived in his cell in 2019, during Trump’s first term, three years after former President Barack Obama left office. “And we went through years of that with the Russia, Russia, Russia hoax, with all of the different things that we had to go through.”
Meanwhile, disgraced conservative commentator (who, miraculously, still has a job somewhere) Bill O’Reilly also publicly embarrassed himself by trying to blame former President Joe Biden for something he had nothing to do with.
On Monday, during a back-and-forth with NewsNation anchor Leland Vittert, O’Reilly got his own blood pressure up over Democrats pushing for the release of the Epstein files and criticizing Trump for his lack of transparency, and he lashed out by calling them hypocrites by not having the same energy for Biden, while being loud and wrong about, well, virtually everything.
From the Independent:
“This is what infuriates me about these people! Jeffries knew the Biden administration had exactly the same thing the Trump administration has on Epstein. Exactly! Because Epstein was convicted during the Biden administration,” O’Reilly exclaimed.
“Hold on, Bill! You said Epstein was convicted during the Biden administration. Epstein committed suicide during the Trump administration,” the NewsNation anchor noted.
“Yeah, so?!” O’Reilly indignantly retorted.
“How do you convict a guy that is dead?” Vittert wondered.
O’Reilly went on to insist that Epstein was “convicted under Merrick Garland’s Justice Department” and then “incarcerated” before killing himself in jail, prompting Vittert to explain that his guest had his facts completely wrong.
“Bill, I think this is important,” the On Balance host noted. “He was arrested in 2019, and he committed suicide in 2019. He died August 10, 2019. So the Biden administration was not involved in a conviction or a trial of him. They were with his madam, Ghislaine Maxwell.”
Acknowledging that Vittert made a “good point of clarification,” O’Reilly proceeded to double down and once again claimed that Garland was responsible for indicting Epstein in 2019, leading Vittert to point out one more time that this was incorrect.
The crash-out is real. The integrity is not. The Trump administration continues to be an imploding mess.
But MAGA, right?
