Those who live by conspiracy theories may also die by them.
From the outset, Donald Trump’s political career relied on them, starting with the false claim that then-president Barack Obama wasn’t born in the US. But the most important conspiracy theory to the base supporting Mr Trump was the QAnon myth that he would expose, purge and punish a “deep state” cabal of elites mired in paedophilia and sex trafficking of children.
The most passionate wing of the Maga movement viewed Mr Trump, above all, as the bane of elite child abusers. The crucial real-life tie-in lending these fantasies some verisimilitude was disgraced billionaire Jeffrey Epstein, who died under suspicious circumstances at a Manhattan jail during Mr Trump’s first term in 2019. He had been associated with many prominent politicians and other noteworthy people.
Following Mr Trump’s re-election, enormous excitement grew that the Justice Department’s voluminous Epstein files and a supposed “client list“ of high-profile, mainly liberal, sexual predators he catered to would be released in a thunderclap of accountability.
Instead, a July 7 Justice department memo concluded that Epstein didn’t blackmail anyone, wasn’t murdered and had no “client list”. It provoked stunned disbelief and howls of outrage from the President’s deepest support base.
Some adversaries were already stoking the flames. After his acrimonious fallout with Mr Trump, billionaire Elon Musk on June 5 wrote: “Time to drop the really big bomb: Trump is in the Epstein files. That is why they have not been made public. Have a nice day, DJT.”
That post was deleted, but Mr Musk has remained on the attack. “How can people be expected to have faith in Trump if he won’t release the Epstein files?” he posted on July 8.
The horrified astonishment is understandable. Many officials now defending the memo had been dedicated proponents of Epstein conspiracy theories.
In February, Attorney General Pam Bondi said Epstein’s “client list” was on her desk. Now she says it doesn’t exist. Mr Trump says he can’t understand why anyone is “still talking” about Epstein. But declassifying the files was part of his election campaign platformm, although he warned about the potential for "phony stuff" in it.
Donald Trump Jr, Vice President JD Vance, FBI Director Kash Patel and his deputy Dan Bongino (who is threatening to resign over the scandal) had all emphasised the importance of the Epstein files and “client list“ during the campaign. In February, the White House invited right-wing influencers to view “the Epstein files phase one”, but there was nothing new in it.
Nonetheless, there’s plenty of information – 300GB of data related to more than 1,000 victims – in the government’s possession that is being kept under wraps. The administration’s claim that it doesn’t want to embarrass victims lacks credibility. It’s easy to redact names and identifying information regarding the 1,000 little-known victims in tens of thousands of file pages.
Epstein kept extensive videotapes captured throughout his residences. And neither the autopsy nor the investigation into his death have been made public.
Ms Bondi wants the Maga faithful to accept the sudden about-face that there’s no important new information remaining and move on. But in an environment of tense conspiratorial agitation, with a particular focus on the Epstein files, that isn’t going to happen.
Usually Trump-friendly online commentators like Tucker Carlson and Megan Kelly are hammering the topic even though the administration desperately wants to declare the case closed. Mr Carlson has described it as “one of the craziest things I’ve ever seen in my life”, and warned that “if you wanted a revolution, this is how you would act”.
Even US House of Representatives Speaker Mike Johnson, a key Trump ally in Congress, is urging the release of the documents, as Democratic lawmakers demand hearings into the administration’s conduct.
Some Trump supporters are trying to shift blame to Ms Bondi, but that begs the question of why she would be “covering up” whatever is being concealed.
One of the challenges facing Mr Trump is that he doesn’t have the same leverage over online media influencers that he does with members of Congress. There’s no implicit or explicit threat to field candidates to challenge them in primaries and remove them from office. His vulnerability to their criticism is therefore considerable.
To a conspiracy-minded worldview, the only relevant question now is what is being suppressed, and who is covering up for whom.
Mr Trump has sought to pass all responsibility to Ms Bondi, saying she should release whatever she finds “credible” in the files, but she has stopped answering all questions on the issue in public. There appear to be no plans to release anything further.
However, it’s unclear whether even if Mr Trump were to ultimately dismiss his Attorney General over this issue, although he continues to praise her performance, that it would resolve the question. Indeed, it might make matters worse for him by underscoring suspicions that there are aspects of this information that need to be concealed.
Those suspicions are not being quelled by his statements that the files were somehow “made up” by Mr Obama, former FBI chief James Comey, the administration of former president Joe Biden and his other political adversaries. It’s a very strange claim from any perspective.
He is also now linking the controversy to “the Russia hoax” and other scandals he has cast as manufactured political attacks against him. If he wanted to stir speculation that there are embarrassing facts being concealed, he could not frame it any more effectively.
If there really is nothing to all of this, the Trump inner circle has no one to blame but itself for the incredulity and crisis of credibility with the deepest part of its own base.
The entire debacle inevitably begs the question: “Were you lying then, or are you lying now?”
It all leaves the Trump base wondering if Epstein wasn’t at the centre of, at least, some paedophilia sex trafficking among elites, is the entire Maga worldview wrong? Or is there some underlying truth the administration is trying to hide?
