Trump’s ‘coverup’ in the face of Epstein scoops is making his MAGA problems so much worse
The firestorm continued on the MAGA right this week as the political focus on the Epstein files just would not dissipate and Donald Trump dug himself deeper into a hole.
With his administration scrambling to explain why it isn’t releasing files from an investigation that its own members and supporters have said for years should be made public, the president spent the past two weeks reigniting old conflicts with foes ranging from Rosie O’Donnell to Barack Obama.
On Wednesday, those efforts escalated to the point where the U.S. director of national intelligence, Tulsi Gabbard, declared from behind the White House briefing room podium that former President Obama had attempted a “coup” on American soil.
But Trump and his closest advisers are coming to quickly realize that they and the mainstream media both greatly underestimated the staying power of the Epstein issue.
The Trump Department of Justice, led by Attorney General Pam Bondi, declared in a joint statement with the FBI that Jeffrey Epstein, a wealthy, convicted pedophile who died in federal detention in 2019 while awaiting trial on sex trafficking charges, did so by suicide.
To support the conclusion, the agencies released video footage of an area outside of Epstein’s cell spanning the time he was locked in for the evening on the night of his death. In the same statement, the agencies declared that no list of Epstein’s co-conspirators was found within the DOJ’s investigation files.
That announcement was made in early July. Every week since then has been marked with new efforts by the Trump administration to calm its critics on the right, and each has largely been unsuccessful in doing so.
Bondi’s own contributions have been less than helpful for the president. She declared the Epstein file was “on her desk” in an interview earlier this year when asked specifically about the list of Epstein’s clients, and presented MAGA influencers with “Phase 1” of the investigation in special binders bearing a federal seal at the White House.
Phase 2 never materialized, and combined with a minute of footage missing from the videos released by the DOJ her consistent overpromising led to a rift between the attorney general and two top appointees at the FBI: Deputy Director Dan Bongino and Director Kash Patel.
All of it has proven progressively more damaging to the president’s efforts to get ahead of the story, which only exists because Trump himself promised his base that he would release all the information the government has on Epstein when he ran for president.
Gabbard’s campaign against former President Barack Obama and members of his administration has — so far — been the most successful of those efforts to distract.
Gabbard’s conclusion that the national intelligence office she now leads altered intel assessments at then-President Obama’s direction to gin up fears about Russian interference in the 2016 election in order to benefit Trump shifted the attention of a number of MAGAworld’s wayward voices, like Gen. Mike Flynn, Glenn Beck and Alex Jones.
Many others remain fixated on Epstein, however, especially after a pair of Wall Street Journal scoops over the past week. The first detailed a birthday message supposedly penned by Trump and bearing his signature, which alluded to a “secret” the two men shared. Trump fiercely denied the authenticity of the message and signature, and filed a $10 billion lawsuit against the WSJ and its owner Rupert Murdoch alleging libel.
A second one, published Wednesday, reported that Bondi had informed Trump that he was mentioned in the Epstein investigation files that her team reviewed during a meeting in May. Trump’s team also described that second story as “fake”.
With the exception of Trump’s most committed loyalists, the truth understood across the political spectrum is the same: this issue threatens to derail Trump’s second presidency.
Progressives and centrist Democrats, as well as the president’s own lingering rivals in the GOP, recognize that fact with barely-contained glee. Trump’s supporters, meanwhile, couch every statement about the issue with effusive praise regarding how great and wonderful his second presidency has been — and how quickly that could end.
One prominent supporter told his audience this week that he’d made that exact point to Vice President J.D. Vance in person.
In an episode that posted Saturday, MAGA-aligned podcaster and comedian Tim Dillon hinted to viewers that he’d dined with the vice president and told him the administration was “done” if the entirety of the Epstein files were not released — and Bondi fired.
Dillon later confirmed it was Vance he dined with during a conversation with Alex Jones.
“If you don’t disclose everything you’re done,” Dillon said he told Vance. “I mean, nobody will support you guys. You are fully and completely part of this coverup if everything doesn’t come out. I think it paralyzes their presidency.”
During that conversation with Jones days later, Dillon was already poking holes in the explanation Vance gave him in private.
“I had dinner last week with the vice president, he told me … they do not have videos of any powerful person in a compromising position [with underaged girls],” Dillon told Jones.
“That’s the party line that they’re going with. If that’s the case, why would Pam Bondi call it evidence? Why would she say it’s evidence? She’s not an idiot. She’s the attorney general. Why would she say that she has files on her desk if none of these implicated anybody?” Dillon asked. “It just feels like they’re covering something [up]. For sure.”
“I feel like, they’re telling a story. And the story doesn’t make sense,” he added.
This week, the fallout in Washington was in plain view.
Congress departed early for the August recess, with Mike Johnson sending members home early to avoid embarrassing votes and the spectacle of Republicans joining with Democrats on a petition to release the Epstein files.
But there’s much more coming, and it no longer has an end in sight.
Members of the House Oversight committee want Ghislaine Maxwell, Epstein’s former girlfriend who is serving a 20-year sentence for grooming young women and girls for the sex trafficker, to testify. Thomas Massie, the Republican thorn in Trump’s side co-leading the discharge petition, predicted to reporters that his effort would only grow in popularity over the next month as members faced their constituents back home.
Then there’s the 2026 midterms.
If Democrats take back the House next year, a very possible prospect, the final two years of Donald Trump’s presidency could well be tied up with congressional investigations centered on the Epstein issue.
Subpoenas for Cabinet officials and other Trump officials could be on the agenda as a potentially Democrat-controlled House, with the aid of rebel Republicans, launch probe after probe, even potentially a special committee, to hammer at the issue.
The survival of Trump’s second-term agenda and, more significantly, his ability to hold his political power base intact could be on the line if the president cannot get on the same page as his base on this issue, and quickly.
He needs to stop trying to distract and actually give his MAGA base an Epstein-related meal to chew on.
