How the Trump administration's handling of the Epstein files became a vehicle for QAnon
The mystery surrounding the Epstein files also became a vehicle for QAnon conspiracy theorists to push their ideas about a 'deep state' cover-up of a network of global pedophiles into the broader tent of the Maga movement.
During his campaign, Donald Trump promised on several occasions to declassify the Epstein files, which would include the 'list'. Before they joined the government, Trump's FBI chief, Kash Patel, and deputy FBI chief, Dan Bongino, spent years on podcasts and TV appearances winking at QAnon and Epstein conspiracy theorists and demanding the files' release, even suggesting that the Biden administration was withholding them to protect its own.
Related: Republicans move to block Democratic effort to force release of Epstein files
Then, on the heels of the Fourth of July holiday weekend, the justice department quietly dropped a bombshell in the form of a memo. A 'systematic review' of the Epstein files by justice department officials 'revealed no incriminating 'client list',' the memo stated, nor did they find evidence that Epstein blackmailed powerful figures. The memo also affirmed that Epstein died by suicide in his Brooklyn jail cell while awaiting trial on sex-trafficking charges in 2019.
Since the memo's release, Maga has been in turmoil – and some of Trump's most loyal foot soldiers have been in open revolt against his administration, accusing it of now being part of a cover-up and calling for the resignation of the attorney general, Pam Bondi, over her handling of the Epstein files.
On Truth Social, Trump offered a stern rebuke to his detractors, claiming that the Epstein files were actually a hoax, because they were written by 'Obama, Crooked Hillary, Comey, Brennan, and the Losers and Criminals of the Biden Administration'.
But not everyone's buying it.
'This is the worst response I've ever seen from President Trump,' said the rightwing commentator Benny Johnson. The disgraced former general Michael Flynn, considered a hero by the QAnon movement, wrote: '@realdonaldtrump please understand the EPSTEIN AFFAIR IS NOT GOING AWAY.' The rightwing commentator Matt Walsh called Trump's statement 'extremely obtuse', adding: 'We don't accept obvious bullshit from our political leaders.'
Maga's obsession with the Epstein files is an indication of how the core ideas associated with the fringe QAnon conspiracy – that a shadowy cabal of government elites is working to cover up a global child sex-trafficking operation – have taken root in the broader pro-Trump movement.
QAnon took a long tradition of antisemitic, 'deep state' and 'satanic panic' conspiracy theories, put them on steroids with a pro-Trump flavor, and assigned the enigmatic Q, supposedly a government official with top secret clearance and a penchant for posting on 8chan, at the helm of the movement.
'The unique thing about QAnon is that you had an anonymous poster on an anonymous chatroom putting out clues for people to try to solve,' said Joseph Uscinski, a political science professor at the University of Miami specializing in the study of conspiracy theories.
When QAnon emerged in 2017, allegations against Epstein had been swirling for over a decade.
Epstein's arrest in 2019 on federal charges was a boon for QAnon. The movement quickly sought to incorporate information about the case into their propaganda. The case also surfaced a trove of digital media that QAnon sleuths could pore over looking for 'clues' – such as photographs of Epstein with various public figures (including many with Trump), Epstein's flight logs and aerial images of his private island.
'Epstein engaged in crimes, but I think there's a whole fantasy lore surrounding it that goes far beyond any available evidence,' said Uscinski.
Jon Lewis, a research fellow at George Washington University's program on extremism, told the Guardian that as 'QAnon and Maga have become increasingly intertwined in recent years, we have seen the embrace of increasingly fringe conspiracies and extremist narratives like 'Pizzagate' and 'Save the Children' by mainstream political figures.'
These narratives turned out to be useful for Trump and his allies, who harnessed simmering suspicion of establishment figures and cast the former reality star as the only person brave enough to take on 'the deep state'.
'As Trump and other prominent Republican figures amplified QAnon content and used it as a political cudgel against Democratic politicians like Barack Obama and Hillary Clinton, they were providing legitimacy and approval to the very same conspiracy theorists who are now decrying Pam Bondi and the justice department,' said Lewis.
Tensions over the Epstein files have been building since February, when Bondi went on Fox News and said Epstein's client list was sitting on her desk 'right now for review.' A week later, at a press event at the White House, Bondi handed out binders that she promised contained 'declassified' Epstein records to two dozen Maga influencers. The influencers quickly realized there was basically no new information in them. In response to the ensuing backlash, Bondi said that the FBI had failed to disclose a tranche of Epstein files, and that she had ordered Patel to compile them.
Months later, in June, Elon Musk – amid the dramatic feud with his former friend Trump – claimed without evidence that the reason the Epstein files hadn't been released in full was because the president was implicated in them. (Musk has since deleted the post.)
The scale of the current Maga meltdown 'certainly shows the significance of Epstein conspiracies within the broader QAnon pantheon', said Lewis, and 'should lay bare just how deeply the disease of the QAnon movement has seeped into a Republican party which has welcomed its most conspiratorial, antisemitic, reactionary fringe into Congress and the executive branch with open arms'.
The backlash Trump is facing is a leopards-eating-faces moment for the administration.
'This was a conspiracy that Donald Trump, Pam Bondi and these Maga extremists have been fanning the flames of for the last several years, and now the chickens are coming home to roost,' the House minority leader, Hakeem Jeffries, told reporters Monday.
Uscinski noted that's 'the interesting thing that happens when you use conspiracy theories to get into power'.
'Because conspiracy theories should be aimed at the people in power, right? They accuse powerful people of doing something wicked behind the scenes,' he added.
In Trump's case, he 'spent the last 10 years building a coalition of largely conspiracy-minded people in the US', said Uscinski. 'So in order for him to keep these people engaged and donating and going to his speeches, and voting for him and voting for Republicans, he has to keep pressing the conspiracy theories.'
But experts are skeptical that this current Maga meltdown will have any lasting impact.
Trump's overall approval rating hasn't fluctuated dramatically over the past week. In fact, it's almost at exactly the same place it was at the same point in his first administration.
Related: How the Jeffrey Epstein row plunged Maga world into turmoil – a timeline
'[Trump's supporters] are disgruntled, they're upset and they're going to express that on social media. But they're not going to abandon him, because he's the only game in town for them,' said Uscinski.
He compared the current moment to the backlash Trump faced back in 2021. After courting favor from anti-vaxxers, Trump was booed when he announced during a live Bill O'Reilly interview that he had received his Covid-19 booster shot and urged Americans to get theirs.
Despite the importance of the Epstein files to the Maga and QAnon movements, Lewis thinks that 'it's unlikely this outrage will last'.
'The culture war will move on to its next target … and the rage machine will follow with conspiracies and vitriol,' said Lewis. 'It's much easier to be angry at an immigrant than to wonder whether you've been lied to for the last eight years.'
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