With ‘Epstein list,' Trump is hoist by his own conspiracy-theory petard
So it should come as no surprise that President Trump and his administration now find themselves in the awkward position of having to play the grown-ups and talk their own base down from the ledge. Judging by his sour tone, it's a role that Trump loathes.
At a Cabinet meeting Tuesday, a reporter asked Attorney General Pam Bondi about the Justice Department's claim that Jeffrey Epstein died by suicide and, inconveniently, left no 'client list.' Trump, clearly annoyed, cut in: 'Are you still talking about Jeffrey Epstein? This guy's been talked about for years. You're asking — we have [deadly flooding in] Texas. We have this. We have all of the things. And are people still talking about this guy, this creep?'
Ah, yes. The man who built an entire political career out of winking at every fever dream about elites drinking baby blood now wants us to stop asking all those pesky questions so he can focus on serious matters.
You don't have to be a genius to savor the irony, nor a sadist to enjoy the spectacle of MAGA-world being hoist by its own petard over the mythical 'Epstein list.'
From the beginning, Trump's rise was powered by weaponized paranoia. His entry ticket into presidential politics was the racist birther lie about former President Barack Obama. Later, he gladly rode the wave of QAnon — a movement obsessed with Satanic pedophile rings and sex-trafficking cabals — and happily soaked up the support of every tinfoil-hatter who would have him.
Naturally, these same people became convinced that the release of Epstein's 'list' would finally unmask the sinister elite cabal that has secretly ruled the planet since the dawn of time — with the added benefit of humiliating Trump's enemies.
The fantasy went something like this: The Deep State was hiding the truth, but Trump (their glorious truth-teller) would win in 2024, root the traitors out of big government and jail the globalist cosmopolitan elites preying on our children.
Instead? We got Bondi — who once boasted she had the files 'sitting on my desk right now' — suffering a sudden case of amnesia.
Which raises some questions. Which Bondi was lying? Fox News Bondi, who claimed to have the goods? Or Cabinet room Bondi, who claims she's never seen such a list?
Then there's Elon Musk — the richest man on earth and erstwhile Trump superfan — who not long ago tweeted angrily that Trump was on Epstein's client list, only to delete the post later.
Was Musk lying? Is Trump really on the list? These questions aren't difficult to ask, although they are apparently difficult for Trump's supporters to answer. Either Bondi and Musk are outrageous liars (and should be fired or shamed out of polite society), or Trump is actually guilty of heinous crimes.
It's not a logical leap to put these things together, so why do the MAGA faithful — who can somehow find hidden codes in the words 'cheese pizza' — now seem incapable of seeing the obvious contradictions?
At some point, Democrats may need to get better at helping people connect the dots. Not that serious Democratic leaders should go full Q, but it wouldn't hurt to have a few shameless surrogates 'just asking questions' — like so many of Trump's MAGA influencers.
After all, there are plenty of pictures of Trump and Epstein together looking chummy, and Trump himself once called Epstein a 'terrific guy' who 'likes beautiful women as much as I do, and many of them are on the younger side.'
How hard could this be?
Then again, most of the Americans open to conspiracy theories have sorted into the Republican Party, and there's not much hope of turning them against Dear Leader. Indeed, many of the same Republicans who screamed about Epstein when they thought the matter would take down former President Bill Clinton have now gone curiously silent.
To be fair, a few conspiracy diehards — Alex Jones among them — have grumbled that Trump is hiding the truth. But most have simply invented elaborate rationalizations claiming that Trump is somehow both personally innocent and covering for others.
In a sane world, such a cover-up would be outrageous, explosive and disqualifying.
But we're not in a sane world. We're in a world where the same people who recently claimed Trump was about to start World War III when he bombed Iran are still making excuses for him.
Whether Trump's name is on 'the list' — which likely doesn't even exist — is beside the point. What has been established, and what the Trump White House desperately wants you to ignore, is that once again the powerful are lying to you. Again. As always.
Matt K. Lewis is a columnist, podcaster and author of the books 'Too Dumb to Fail' and 'Filthy Rich Politicians.'
Try Our AI Features
Explore what Daily8 AI can do for you:
Comments
No comments yet...
Related Articles
New York Post
2 minutes ago
- New York Post
Miranda Devine: The country deserves better than the Dems ‘cracked out clown show,' ‘elite' media ignoring Gabbard's bombshell
America deserves better than the degenerate propaganda machine that passes for 'elite' journalism. We deserve better than the evil 'cracked out clown show' the Democratic Party has become. The New York Times and The Washington Post all but ignored DNI Tulsi Gabbard's bombshell press conference Wednesday, at which she announced that she had sent criminal referrals to the DOJ and FBI implicating former President Barack Obama and his national security team in the 'seditious conspiracy' of the Russia collusion hoax. No wonder the best of the Democrats have switched to the Trump GOP. Authentic, principled leaders who might once have rescued Democrats from the abyss, like Gabbard and Bobby Kennedy Jr., now serve in the Trump cabinet, and countless unnamed voters have switched allegiance. Only the very wealthy protected class and the controlled underclass remain with a smattering of grifters and the irredeemably Trump-deranged, but that doesn't mean the party isn't dangerous. Advertisement As time goes on, and more evidence is painstakingly chipped out of hiding, we see just how rotten are the apex Democrats: Obama, Hillary Clinton and Joe Biden. No wonder their party is a shambles: 'Constipated. Leaderless. Confused. A cracked-out clown car. Divided,' wrote veteran Democratic strategist James Carville in the Times this week, warning of an impending 'civil war' between whatever is left of the moderate rump and the parasitical radical faction that is sucking the party dry. Dem blood-suckers But the energy of the party is with the blood-suckers, like commie nepo-baby Zohran Mamdani, who may disastrously win the New York City mayoralty. His clones are popping up everywhere. Advertisement When Hunter Biden emerged from hiding to attack Obama and his proxies, the politically ambitious Hollywood 'brand' George Clooney ('not a f–king actor') and the smug former Obama bros at Pod Save America ('junior f–king speechwriters'), he was speaking on behalf of his father, Joe, the aggrieved former president who has become the scapegoat for his party's ills. 'What right do you have to step on a man who's given 52 years of his f–king life to the service of this country?' He actually has a point. But Hunter also looked for all the world, in his four-hour-plus rants on two podcasts, to be auditioning for his own presidential run in 2028, which, given the parlous state of his party, is not such an implausible prospect. Advertisement Hunter's friends often have spoken of his political ambitions. In writings on his laptop and in his memoir, he bitterly recalls ex-wife Kathleen's skeptical reaction when he expressed a desire to carry on the Biden political dynasty after brother Beau's funeral. 'Are you serious?' she said, reminding him that he had just been discharged from the Naval Reserve in disgrace after testing positive for cocaine his first weekend. As if to plant the seed of 2028, Hunter expounded this week on some of his whacky political positions — extreme open borders like Daddy, faux concern for the working man, crack is healthier than alcohol, a lot of F-bombs — and delivered a line that must have been practiced in the mirror, possibly naked. 'I'll tell you what, if I became president in two years from now — or four years from now, or three years from now . . .' Don't be surprised to see Hunter Biden vs. George Clooney, AOC and Jasmine Crockett, duking it out in the Democratic primaries. Advertisement If you think it's a clown car now, just wait. It can get a whole lot worse, to the detriment of all of us. It's not healthy to have one party spiraling. Dems have proved in the past six months they are not willing to admit where they've gone wrong. But Gabbard is forcing a reckoning on them, by declassifying Russiagate evidence in systematic, ruthless fashion, to focus accountability, at last, on Obama and his band of cynical manipulators who abused the intelligence agencies to sabotage Trump's first presidency. Damning evidence White House press secretary Karoline Leavitt introduced Gabbard to the podium Wednesday by crisply summarizing the latest damning declassified evidence and pointing the finger squarely at Obama, his former CIA Director John Brennan, former DNI James Clapper, former FBI Director James Comey, former deputy FBI Director Andrew McCabe and others who 'conspired to subvert President Trump's 2016 election victory and undermine the democratic will of the American people while publicly pretending to engage in a peaceful transfer of power. 'In private, former President Obama went to great and nefarious lengths to sow discord among the public and sabotage his successor President Trump,' she said. 'The new evidence released by DNI Gabbard confirms that the Obama administration manufactured politicized intelligence which was later used against President Trump in an effort to delegitimize his [2016] victory before he even took the oath of office . . . 'The Russia collusion hoax was a massive fraud perpetuated on the American people from the very beginning. Advertisement 'And the worst part of this is Obama knew that truth . . . There was no collusion, no corruption except on the part of Barack Obama and the weaponized intelligence agencies at the time.' Leavitt wasn't finished. She called out The New York Times and The Washington Post, which had uncritically regurgitated the manufactured intelligence spat out by Obama's henchmen and 'ridiculously' won Pulitzer Prizes for their efforts. 'It's well past time for those awards to be stripped from the journalists . . . 'It is not journalism to propagate political disinformation in service of the Democrat Party and those in the intelligence community who hand over out-of-context and fake intelligence to push a false political narrative.' Advertisement Gabbard then unveiled a series of bombshells including: Brennan suppressed intelligence showing Russia was not favoring Trump and actually believed that Hillary Clinton would inevitably win the 2016 election; Russia was withholding compromising evidence on Clinton until after her victory so they could damage her presidency. Russia's foreign intelligence service had DNC communications that Clinton was suffering from 'intensified psycho-emotional problems, including uncontrolled fits of anger, aggression and cheerfulness [and was] placed on a daily regimen of 'heavy tranquilizers.' The original December 2016 Presidential Daily Brief with intelligence showing Russia did not interfere in the 2016 election would have been briefed to Trump if it hadn't been scrapped and a new bogus intelligence assessment [ICA] fingering Russia ordered by Obama. Advertisement The fabricated Steele Dossier that was forced into the ICA by Brennan, against objections from the CIA's top Russia experts, was not just in the appendix of the new ICA, but in the body. When confronted by his own handpicked analysts objecting to the inclusion of the farcical 'pee tape' dossier, Brennan said, 'Yes, but doesn't it ring true?' The evidence 'directly point[s] to President Obama leading the manufacturing of this intelligence assessment,' said Gabbard. The result was 'a yearslong coup against the incoming president of the United States, Donald Trump.' Advertisement The first question from CNN to Gabbard was whether she was just trying to curry favor with Trump. The Times buried the story on its webpage, mentioning it only in a scathing 'analysis' addendum to its breathless Epstein coverage, to say that Gabbard 'targeting Obama' was an attempt to 'change the topic.' The Washington Post was just as bad, with a loaded headline downpage: 'Gabbard sidesteps question on weaponizing intelligence.' Talk about burying the lead. The Democratic Party will never reckon with its problems while it has a media that continues to cover for it.
CNN
2 minutes ago
- CNN
Judges' pick to be new US attorney in NJ vows to take office despite being fired by Justice Department
Federal agencies FacebookTweetLink A possible standoff is brewing over who will replace Alina Habba as US attorney in New Jersey with her interim appointment set to expire Friday. Desiree Leigh Grace, a top prosecutor fired by the Justice Department Tuesday after she was tapped by the federal judges in the state to replace Habba, is vowing to take over the job 'in accordance with the law.' To do so, Grace would have to be sworn in by a federal judge just after midnight Friday when Habba ceases to be US attorney – and defy Attorney General Pam Bondi who ousted her from her job as New Jersey's first assistant US attorney. The Justice Department hasn't said what it plans to do with the position, other than Bondi and Todd Blanche, the deputy attorney general, decrying the appointment of Grace and accusing the judges of political motivations and attempting to usurp President Donald Trump's appointment powers. If Grace assumes the job, the president could fire her. The department could still outmaneuver the judges by having Habba leave before midnight Friday and appointing a new interim US attorney, a move they've used in other cases. Grace posted a lengthy message Wednesday on LinkedIn thanking colleagues and pushing back that politics played any part in how she did her job. She ended her post with a defiant vow to take over the job she was appointed to by the judges. 'Yesterday the District Judges for the District of New Jersey selected me to serve as the United States Attorney for the District of New Jersey. It will forever be the greatest honor that they selected me on merit, and I'm prepared to follow that Order and begin to serve in accordance with the law,' she wrote. Grace continued, 'I've served under both Republican and Democratic administrations. I've been promoted four times in the last five years by both — including four months ago by this administration. Politics never impacted my work at the Department.' Habba declined to comment when reached by CNN. The dispute is a consequence of the slow pace of the US Senate to approve Trump's US attorney nominations. Habba and other interim US attorneys could run out of the allotted 120 days they are allowed to serve. Under federal law, if the administration doesn't fill the job and the Senate doesn't confirm a nominee, federal judges in the district can select a temporary US attorney.
CNN
3 minutes ago
- CNN
Judges' pick to be new US attorney in NJ vows to take office despite being fired by Justice Department
Federal agencies FacebookTweetLink A possible standoff is brewing over who will replace Alina Habba as US attorney in New Jersey with her interim appointment set to expire Friday. Desiree Leigh Grace, a top prosecutor fired by the Justice Department Tuesday after she was tapped by the federal judges in the state to replace Habba, is vowing to take over the job 'in accordance with the law.' To do so, Grace would have to be sworn in by a federal judge just after midnight Friday when Habba ceases to be US attorney – and defy Attorney General Pam Bondi who ousted her from her job as New Jersey's first assistant US attorney. The Justice Department hasn't said what it plans to do with the position, other than Bondi and Todd Blanche, the deputy attorney general, decrying the appointment of Grace and accusing the judges of political motivations and attempting to usurp President Donald Trump's appointment powers. If Grace assumes the job, the president could fire her. The department could still outmaneuver the judges by having Habba leave before midnight Friday and appointing a new interim US attorney, a move they've used in other cases. Grace posted a lengthy message Wednesday on LinkedIn thanking colleagues and pushing back that politics played any part in how she did her job. She ended her post with a defiant vow to take over the job she was appointed to by the judges. 'Yesterday the District Judges for the District of New Jersey selected me to serve as the United States Attorney for the District of New Jersey. It will forever be the greatest honor that they selected me on merit, and I'm prepared to follow that Order and begin to serve in accordance with the law,' she wrote. Grace continued, 'I've served under both Republican and Democratic administrations. I've been promoted four times in the last five years by both — including four months ago by this administration. Politics never impacted my work at the Department.' Habba declined to comment when reached by CNN. The dispute is a consequence of the slow pace of the US Senate to approve Trump's US attorney nominations. Habba and other interim US attorneys could run out of the allotted 120 days they are allowed to serve. Under federal law, if the administration doesn't fill the job and the Senate doesn't confirm a nominee, federal judges in the district can select a temporary US attorney.
