HALIFAX—Has Donald Trump lied his way into a corner he can’t lie his way out of?
The Jeffrey Epstein sex-trafficking scandal is rocking not just the presidency, it has opened an unprecedented split in the MAGA movement itself. In political terms, it is a scandal that has morphed into a crisis. It is Monica Lewinsky’s blue dress in spades.
For the first time, Trump’s vaunted and often vacuous base is at odds with the president over his flip-flop on the promise to release the all the Epstein files should he be returned to the White House.
But after he was elected, his administration declined to release the promised information, claiming that there was nothing there to see. The guy who campaigned on not trusting the government and promoting conspiracy theories had become the deep state he had so effectively pilloried.
Trump’s reversal flopped. It was more than a little hard to believe, given that Trump had been told that his name came up several times in the Epstein files last May.
When recently asked about that, Trump denied to a reporter that he had been so briefed by his AG Pam Bondi. It was after that briefing, confirmed now by several news agencies, that the DOJ announced that it would not be releasing more files on Epstein.
Nor did it help that Bondi once claimed this about Epstein’s so-called client list: “It’s sitting on my desk right now for review.”
In the lead-up to the last presidential election, Trump, the GOP, and several conservative podcasters with huge right-wing audiences, pushed a deadly conspiracy theory, making millions from their sordid story.
They claimed that the Democrats were suppressing the Epstein files to protect powerful figures who allegedly played a part in the sexual abuse of under-age, young women and girls. Now it was Trump himself who was continuing the cover-up with the help of the ever pliable Bondi.
Up until now, all Trump had to do to get out of tight spots was direct MAGA World to support his version of events. Everything he didn’t like was a hoax or witch-hunt engineered by the Democrats. That approach appealed to his conspiracy-soaked base.
That’s how Trump survived the damning Access Hollywood tape, his dalliance with a paid off porn-star, 34 felony convictions for fraud, and even an attempted coup at the Capitol Building, after he lost the presidential election to Joe Biden.
MAGA even backed the president when he used his powers to pardon all the people convicted of assaulting police officers defending the People’s House on Jan. 6, 2021.
Trump tried the same tactic this time, but MAGA and some members of the GOP weren’t buying. The hypocrisy was too great and the potential crimes too sordid to be knocked down by duplicitous partisan appeals and factual back-flips.
Instead, the Oversight Committee of Congress, with the help of some Republican votes, drafted legislation demanding that the DOJ release all of the Epstein files. Ghislaine Maxwell, Epstein’s partner in sex-trafficking that earned her 20 years in prison, has also been subpoenaed by a House panel.
Trump’s reaction to this revolt in his own ranks? He viciously attacked GOP members who publicly asked for the entire Epstein file to be released. And he called those MAGA members “stupid” who continued to clamour for full disclosure of all documents related to the scandal.
Unable to change the subject by bullying or browbeating his own party and base, Trump turned to his other tried and true method of controlling the conversation: offering up bizarre diversions to eclipse the story he wanted to go away. Some of those diversions have been as comical as they are desperate.
Trump launched a $10-billion lawsuit against Rupert Murdoch and others. The suit was brought after The Wall Street Journal reported that Trump had sent a salacious greeting card to Epstein on his 50th birthday.
Trump alleges that the newspaper had “defamed” him by referring to him as Epstein’s “friend.” Don’t hold your breath waiting for Trump to be deposed in this case. That will never happen. This is simply another example of “lawfare,” according to Trump’s defensive playbook.
How utterly silly. Dozens of pictures have since been produced by multiple news outlets showing the two men socializing together.
Epstein’s former girlfriend described the two men as “best friends.”
And MSNBC came up with footage of Epstein attending Trump’s wedding to Marla Maples. It was, apparently, a hard invitation to get. Trump’s attempts to distance himself from Epstein are plainly ludicrous and oddly curious.
Instead of releasing the Epstein files, which is what the public is interested in, Trump instead declassified hundreds of thousands of pages on Martin Luther King—against the wishes of the King family. Why would he do that? To show transparency? Really?
And in the most bizarre example of trying to change the news cycle, Trump had his director of national intelligence, the hapless Tulsi Gabbard, open an investigation into Barack Obama, for, of all things, treason.
Gabbard, largely without any qualifications for the job she now holds, contends that Obama and his team faked an intelligence report in order to interfere in the 2016 election to assist Hillary Clinton.
It must be said that no one knows the context in which Trump’s name, or anyone else’s, came up in the Epstein files. But if Trump really believes there is nothing in the documents the DOJ still holds, why not just release them and clear the air? Releasing the grand jury testimony from Epstein’s trial won’t help.
That’s not going to answer the burning question at hand: is the Trump administration breaking its promise to release the full Epstein file in order to protect powerful people who might have been Epstein’s clients?
It does not inspire confidence in how Trump is managing this crisis that the deputy attorney general set up a meeting with Ghislaine Maxwell in a Florida prison. The number two person in the DOJ would never normally be chosen to conduct such an usual interview. That would be the work of line lawyers. And guess who that deputy AG happens to be? Todd Blanche, Trump’s former personal lawyer.
Is this a prelude to having Maxwell say that Trump had nothing to do with Epstein’s dark enterprises? Like New York Mayor Eric Adams, will Maxwell get a pardon down the line for doing Trump’s bidding?
The answers to those questions will come somewhere down the line when Congress comes back from its summer recess and either gets or doesn’t get the entire Epstein file.
But this much is pretty clear. With the midterms inching ever closer, the public demand for clarity in this atrocious case will not go away.
The impact on Trump’s presidency is already showing. CNN just published a poll that found that Trump is “under water” on every file, including immigration, the economy, tariffs, foreign affairs and yes, the Epstein scandal. A recent Gallup poll (July 7-21) reported that Trump’s approval rating is at 37 per cent and his disapproval rating is at 58 per cent.
That is as close to an obituary as a poll can get.
Michael Harris is an award-winning author and journalist.
The Hill Times