The main thing that has made the Epstein files seem politically (as opposed to morally) significant is that Donald Trump remains obsessed with preventing them from seeing the light of day. He thus devoted much of Wednesday to importuning Republicans such as Colorado Congresswoman Lauren Boebert not to back their release. ‘Only a very bad, or stupid, Republican,’ Trump declared, ‘would fall into that trap.’
But senior Republicans are expecting mass vote defections in the coming week as legislators prepare to vote for a disclosure bill sponsored by Representatives Ro Khanna and Thomas Massie. Georgia Congresswoman Marjorie Taylor Greene says that releasing the files is ‘not only the right thing to do for the victims but it’s also the right thing to do for the country’. While the current batch of emails that are being released comes from Jeffrey Epstein’s estate, the treasure trove rests in the Department of Justice, where Trump already had hundreds of government agents pore over them for mentions of his name.
The surprising thing would be if Trump had not known about Epstein’s child sex ring
For now, the emails that are being released are already further tarring the President. Others are implicated as well. According to former Time magazine correspondent Nina Burleigh:
There is amazing stuff in those emails. Jared Kushner is in there quite a bit. A lot of high profile, powerful people are not having a good night. You can see how enmeshed Jeffrey Epstein is in the power structures here and abroad.
If the House overwhelmingly passes the bill to force the release of the Epstein files, then the Senate will face severe pressure to pass it as well. Trump would almost surely veto it. But vetoing the bill would be tantamount to an admission of guilt that might look worse than anything that’s actually in the files. Had Trump simply released the files at the outset of his new presidential term, he wouldn’t be in this predicament.
So far, the emails that have been released are suggestive but not dispositive. In one email Epstein observes, ‘I know how dirty Donald is.’ Presumably, he was not alluding to Trump’s personal hygiene. In another he wrote, ‘I have met some very bad people. None as bad as Trump. Not one decent cell in his body.’ Worse: ‘Of course he knew about the girls.’
The surprising thing, of course, would be if the President had not known about Epstein’s child sex ring. Trump was spending oodles of time with Epstein, who was his best, maybe only, buddy. As late as 2017, he was apparently celebrating Thanksgiving together with Epstein. Put bluntly, the two had a bromance going. To believe that he would have been unaware of Epstein’s principal preoccupation stretches credulity.
White House press secretary Karoline Leavitt claimed that these stories are all a manufactured attempt to divert attention from the weighty affairs of government that Trump is focused on addressing. ‘These stories are nothing more than bad-faith efforts to distract from President Trump’s historic accomplishments,’ she said, ‘and any American with common sense sees right through this hoax and clear distraction from the government opening back up again.’
Trump, a tabloid president, as Sam Tanenhaus once put it, has repeatedly been dogged by sexual scandals. But this one goes beyond mere prurience. Russia and Israel all figure in the files. Whether the documents will do more than further singe the President’s already equivocal reputation is an open question. If nothing else, Trump’s frantic behaviour suggests that they will.
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