What to know about the metastasizing Jeffrey Epstein controversy

Washington Post

a day ago

The Jeffrey Epstein controversy isn't going away for President Donald Trump. In fact, it may be ramping up.
Three weeks after the Justice Department said there was nothing more to share about the years-old criminal case against Epstein, a convicted sex offender who died in 2019, the clamor for additional details has consumed Washington. Some MAGA leaders are accusing the Trump administration of hiding the truth. Congress has launched its own investigation. And new revelations about Trump's long and close friendship with Epstein are raising questions about what the president knew about Epstein's crimes and when he knew it.
Trump has uncharacteristically lashed out at his supporters, urging them to drop their obsession with the case. 'Don't talk about Trump,' he said last week.
But polls show Americans want to know more. A recent CBS News-YouGov poll found that 58 percent say they're following news about the case 'somewhat' or 'very' closely. A third of Republican voters disapprove of how Trump is handling the case, according to a Quinnipiac University poll — suggesting significant discontent among Trump's usually unwavering supporters.
Here's what's going on, how we got here and why the controversy has staying power.
Epstein was a wealthy, well-connected socialite who died in jail in 2019 in what authorities said was a suicide, before he could be tried on sex trafficking charges. His relationships with presidents, princes and Wall Street barons therefore went unplumbed in court. Trump was among the powerful people who were close with Epstein, but Trump has said he cut off ties before Epstein was arrested in 2006, convicted of sex offenses and received a lenient sentence in a secret plea deal.
Figures on the right have spun unsubstantiated conspiracy theories about how Epstein died and who was connected to him, weaving them into an overarching narrative that the country is run by an evil cabal that revels in abusing children.
'There is a sense Epstein had so much influence over these elites,' said Cynthia Wang, who studies conspiracy theories and heads a conflict-management center at Northwestern University.
In the past, Trump and current leaders of his administration often fanned the flames. Trump said on the campaign trail that he would 'have no problem' releasing files from Epstein's case.
His administration initially seemed headed down that road. Attorney General Pam Bondi said on TV shortly after she took office that a rumored 'client list' of powerful men who abused girls alongside Epstein 'is sitting on my desk right now.'
That message changed in early July, when Bondi's Justice Department released a memo saying the Epstein files contain no such list, confirmed that Epstein died by suicide (rather than being killed, as some have suggested) and announced that no additional files would be released.
Some of Trump's most loyal and vocal supporters were furious and said they felt as if the administration had let them down.
'As someone who voted for the president, campaigned for the president a lot — I'm not attacking the president,' conservative pundit Tucker Carlson said. 'But I think even people who are fully on board with the bulk of the MAGA agenda are like, 'This is too much, actually.''
In a rare concession to his base, Trump has urged his government to seek the release of old grand jury testimony, but one such request has already been denied by a judge. Meanwhile, demands for new information threaten to consume Washington.
Republicans and Democrats on a House subcommittee voted last week to demand that the Justice Department hand over thousands of pages of files about Epstein and his associates. It's a legally binding move that will force the Republican-led Congress to subpoena the Trump administration.
'The president, by September, will surely have turned over everything,' Rep. James Comer (R-Kentucky), who is in charge of issuing the subpoenas on behalf of the panel, predicted.
This is the most significant action Congress has taken, but it's not the only one. Various House committees have voted three times in recent weeks to investigate Epstein's actions.
Fanned by Democrats who see an opportunity to weaken Trump, the debate has paralyzed the House from doing much of anything else. Republican leaders sent lawmakers home early last week, with plans to reconvene in September.
Maxwell was Epstein's girlfriend, and she is serving a 20-year prison sentence on charges of helping him sexually abuse underage girls. She is a critical link in the Epstein story, but she was also accused of lying related to her case, so it's not clear what credible information she might provide.
House Republicans have subpoenaed her and are scheduled to talk to her in prison in Florida next month. Last week, the Justice Department dispatched Deputy Attorney General Todd Blanche, who was Trump's criminal defense lawyer, to interview her over two days about people in Epstein's orbit.
Legal experts doubt Maxwell can shed any new light on the case. 'Prosecutors would have fully explored whether she had any valuable information before she went to trial and was sentenced,' said Barbara McQuade, a former U.S. attorney now with the University of Michigan Law School. 'Anyone who could have been charged would have been charged a long time ago.'
Evan Gotlob, an attorney who prosecuted similar crimes as a federal prosecutor in New York during the first Trump administration and is now with the Lucosky Brookman law firm, echoed that sentiment. 'I think she's just going to tell them what they already know. So this could be just for show,' Gotlob said.
Another reason to be skeptical of what Maxwell says to authorities: She is gunning for a pardon. Trump recently told reporters he hasn't considered it but noted, 'I'm allowed to do it.'
Bondi told Trump in May that he is named multiple times in the Epstein files, the Wall Street Journal recently reported. That may not be surprising given that the two once were friends, and Epstein had hundreds of contacts. There's no public evidence of any wrongdoing on Trump's part.
But new reporting has underscored the extent of their friendship. Epstein attended one of Trump's weddings. Trump also contributed a 'bawdy' drawing and the wish that 'every day be another wonderful secret' for a book assembled for Epstein's 50th birthday, The Journal reported. (The Journal reported that other contributions included a poem from Wall Street billionaire Leon Black: 'Blonde, Red or Brunette, spread out geographically/ With this net of fish, Jeff's now 'The Old Man and The Sea'.')
Trump's base is largely brushing off the idea that he knew about Epstein's criminal activity. Still, MAGA's most vocal adherents have yet to let go of what they see as the underlying issue: that the president has a chance to bring down bad guys, promised to do so and now isn't jumping on it.
'If you tell the base of people, who support you, of deep state treasonous crimes, election interference, blackmail, and rich powerful elite evil cabals, then you must take down every enemy of The People,' Rep. Marjorie Taylor Greene (R-Georgia) posted on social media last week. 'If not, The base will turn and there's no going back.
'Dangling bits of red meat no longer satisfies,' Greene wrote. 'They want the whole steak dinner and will accept nothing else.'