Latest news with #EpsteinScandal
The Guardian
11 hours ago
- Politics
- The Guardian
‘The ghost of Epstein is haunting Trump's presidency': inside the ‘Maga' revolt
'I feel so betrayed and so angry. This is not what I voted for.' 'This cemented permanent deep state power.' 'I'm concerned about being able to trust Donald Trump to keep his word.' 'What about justice for these young ladies who were trafficked? What about their justice? Don't they deserve justice?' These were just a few of the calls that besieged conservative radio hosts across the US this week. The president's ardent supporters spent the past decade fulminating over various foes, from Barack Obama and the deep state to undocumented immigrants and transgender children. Now they have a new target: Donald Trump himself. The 'Make America Great Again' (Maga) base is in revolt as never before. The trigger was Trump's broken promise to publicly release details about Jeffrey Epstein, a wealthy financier and convicted sex offender, who was facing federal charges of sex-trafficking minors when he died in jail in 2019. Spurred by the president and his allies, Trump's movement has long latched on to the Epstein scandal, claiming the existence of a secret client list and that he was murdered in his cell as part of a cover-up. But last week the justice department and Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI) announced there was no evidence that the disgraced financier kept such a list or was blackmailing powerful figures. Far from closing the case, the memo deepened supporters' obsession and sense of grievance. A movement defined by the view that elites rig the system against them felt cheated. Trump made efforts to douse the flames with ever-shifting explanations, excuses and distractions but merely poured fuel on the fire. To some, his erratic and evasive behaviour implies a guilty secret. It also evokes a line from President John F Kennedy's 1961 inaugural address: 'Those who foolishly sought power by riding the back of the tiger ended up inside.' Having spent years embracing QAnon-tinged propaganda that casts him as the only saviour who can demolish the 'deep state', Trump is now seen as co-opted by its corrupt bureaucracy. Joe Walsh, a former Republican congressman who ran against Trump for president in 2020, said: 'I talk to the base every day and nothing animates the base more than the deep state. This Epstein thing was Trump's promise. This was going to finally expose the deep state. Now Trump says nothing there? It ain't going to stand.' Epstein was first charged with sex offences in 2006 after the parents of a 14-year-old girl told police that he had molested their daughter at his Florida home. He avoided federal charges due to a controversial plea deal that saw him jailed for just under 13 months. In 2019 he was arrested again in New York and charged with trafficking dozens of teenage girls and engaging in sex acts with them in exchange for money. A separate case against Epstein's girlfriend Ghislaine Maxwell, who was jailed in 2022 for helping him abuse girls, detailed Epstein's connections with high-profile figures such as Britain's Prince Andrew and the former US president Bill Clinton. Both have denied any wrongdoing. In 2019 – during Trump's first term as president – Epstein was found dead in his prison cell after hanging himself, according to the authorities. Sceptics point to suspicious circumstances such as the security cameras around his cell apparently malfunctioning on the night he died, along with other irregularities. They also speculate that the government is concealing details about the Epstein case to protect wealthy and influential clients, including Trump, a longtime associate who in 2002 told New York magazine: 'I've known Jeff for 15 years. Terrific guy. He's a lot of fun to be with. It is even said that he likes beautiful women as much as I do, and many of them are on the younger side.' On Thursday the Wall Street Journal reported that Trump sent a letter featuring a sketch of a naked woman to Epstein in 2003. The president denied writing the letter or drawing the figure, and sued Rupert Murdoch and two Wall Street Journal newspaper reporters on Friday. When he was running for president, Trump said he would release files related to the case. But a bundle put out in February contained little new information. Then in June the spotlight turned back on the president when his former adviser Elon Musk claimed – in a now-deleted X post – that Trump is 'in the Epstein files'. Just a month later, a memo from the justice department and FBI said the Epstein files did not contain evidence that would justify further investigation. An almost 11-hour video published to dispel theories Epstein was murdered showed a section of the New York prison on the night Epstein died but appeared to be missing a minute of footage. The Maga faithful erupted in fury. Media personality Tucker Carlson, activist Laura Loomer and Trump's former adviser Steve Bannon claim the government's handling of the case lacks transparency. The far-right commentator Jack Posobiec said he would not rest 'until we go full Jan 6 committee on the Jeffrey Epstein files'. Baffled, flailing and unusually out of step, Trump used his Truth Social platform to call supporters off the Epstein trail amid reports of infighting between the attorney general, Pam Bondi, and the FBI deputy director, Dan Bongino, over the issue. 'What's going on with my 'boys' and, in some cases, 'gals'?' Trump wrote. 'They're all going after Attorney General Pam Bondi, who is doing a FANTASTIC JOB! We're on one Team, MAGA, and I don't like what's happening.' He suggested the turmoil was undermining his administration – 'all over a guy who never dies, Jeffrey Epstein'. Yet while Trump has defeated many political foes, he has never had to take on his own base. Taking a scattergun approach, he said he supported the release of any 'credible' files related to Epstein while downplaying the case as 'pretty boring stuff'. He suggested without citing evidence they were 'made up' by former FBI director James Comey and former presidents Barack Obama and Joe Biden. The president even lashed out at his own supporters, calling them 'weaklings' for falling for what he called a 'radical left' hoax by the opposition to discredit him. 'I don't want their support anymore!' he wrote. Some responded by burning their Maga caps in protest. Still the pressure continued to build. Mike Pence, his former vice-president, said in an interview with CBS News that 'the time has come for the administration to release all of the files regarding Jeffrey Epstein's investigation and prosecution'. Even Mike Johnson, the loyal Republican speaker of the House, broke from Trump on the issue and urged the justice department to make public any documents linked to Epstein. A small but growing band of House Republicans followed suit. Musk put dozens of posts on X accusing Trump of a 'cover-up'. On Thursday the president made a concession by announcing that he will ask a court to allow the release of grand jury testimony in the case. It was the latest effort to defuse a crisis of his own making. His political career gained traction with the help of the 'birther' movement, pushing the racist idea that Barack Obama was born in Kenya and therefore an illegitimate president. He was content to accept support from followers of QAnon, an antisemitic theory involving Satan-worshipping cannibals and a child sex-trafficking ring. Trump also cultivated the ultimate political conspiracy theory that the 2020 presidential election was stolen from him by Joe Biden, a 'big lie' that culminated in the deadly insurrection at the US Capitol on 6 January 2021. Now he is finding that the nothing-to-see-here approach does not work for those who learned from him they must not give up until the government's secrets are exposed. Charlie Sykes, author of How the Right Lost Its Mind, said: 'He's being eaten by the very sort of conspiracy theory that propelled him into office in the first place. Donald Trump is a product of as well as a purveyor of conspiracy theories. He has marinated in conspiracy theories and used them to put him into the presidency so you do have what appears to be a giant irony that this particular conspiracy theory is the one that is haunting him. 'The ghost of Jeffrey Epstein is haunting Trump's presidency far more than any of the other issues that are out there now. Trump is finding out that, if you've pushed a conspiracy theory for years, it's very difficult to suddenly declare that it's non-existent or a hoax. He's doing this Jedi mind trick where he is trying to say, no this is not the conspiracy theory you actually care about.' Trump has already tested his base's loyalty in recent weeks by bombing Iran and pledging support for Ukraine, despite a pledge to avoid foreign entanglements, as well as signing a tax and spending bill that will strip health insurance from millions of people. But Epstein is different: a binary view of liberal elites as paedophiles, and Republicans as protectors of children, has become foundational. Sykes, a conservative author and broadcaster, commented: 'One of the reasons why the Maga base was so obsessed is that it gave them licence to genuinely hate and loathe their political opponents, to consider that the Democrats were not merely wrong on the issues, that they were part of this evil paedophile cabal. 'That is the justification for so much of what Trumpism has become and suddenly to pull the rug out from under the base was a radical and a risky move. For once Trump has overestimated his ability to shape reality to his own will.' It is a rare political gift for Democrats, who have been reeling since Trump's victory in November and struggling to thwart his expansion of presidential power. Several Democrats on Capitol Hill have called for the release of all Epstein files and suggested that Trump could be resisting because he or someone close to him is featured in them. Ro Khanna, a congressman from California whose measure that would have forced Bondi to publish all documents related to Epstein online was blocked by Republicans, said: 'The Republicans are basically protecting the rich and powerful. That's what the Epstein case is about: the rich and powerful men who were allegedly sleeping with underage girls and they should not have impunity. 'They're being protected, possibly because they're donors to people in Washington, because they play golf with people in Washington. So this is a question of whose side are you on? The Democratic party has a chance to have a rebirth of populism, to say we're on the side of the people, we get that this town hasn't worked for ordinary people for too long.' Some veterans of bareknuckle political fights of the past, however, warn that Democrats are still not rising to the moment. If the tables were turned and a Democratic president was suppressing such delicate information, it seems likely that Republicans would be aggressively flooding the airwaves demanding investigations and impeachment. Steve Schmidt, a political strategist and former campaign operative for George W Bush and John McCain, said: 'It's just weak. From a leadership perspective, there's an inability to put the knife in and twist it. 'There is a reluctance because of the tawdriness of it all to appreciate that for Democrats, they lost an election to the most prolific liar because he was perceived as being more honest in the eyes of the American people. This is a prime example to strip him of that in the eyes of his most fervent supporters, and at least move them by some percentage to the sidelines and demotivate them.' Schmidt advocates a national advertising campaign and series of town halls in which Democrats demand an end to the cover-up and ask what Trump and Bondi are hiding. 'This is a moment where Trump is weak, he's perturbed, he's disturbed – and what you do is you hit him.' Public opinion is turning against the president. A Reuters/Ipsos poll found that 69% of respondents thought the federal government was hiding details about Epstein's clients, compared with 6% who disagreed and about one in four who said they were not sure. Tara Setmayer, a Trump critic and former Republican communications director on Capitol Hill, believes the sense of betrayal could translate into a repudiation in next year's midterm elections for the House of Representatives and Senate. She said: 'Is there perhaps a political awakening happening with the most rabid of the Maga base? There may be some weakness here that could be exploited. Where it could hurt Trump in the midterms is by depressing the vote of Maga. They'll stay home and in these key swing districts where one or two percentage points difference can make all the difference in the House.' Walsh, the former congressman, agreed. He commented: 'It'll cause a lot of Trump supporters to not even vote because remember a lot of his supporters aren't Republicans; they are attached to him. If they're utterly disillusioned that the guy they thought was going to be the ultimate slayer of the deep state now is part of the deep state they're going to check out and that's going to hurt Republicans.' He added: 'Trump's legacy is the destruction of truth. He lies as he breathes and his lies to his supporters have made him popular among his supporters, so it's beautiful that he may actually be crucified on one of his lies.'
The Guardian
12 hours ago
- Politics
- The Guardian
‘The ghost of Epstein is haunting Trump's presidency': inside the ‘Maga' revolt
'I feel so betrayed and so angry. This is not what I voted for.' 'This cemented permanent deep state power.' 'I'm concerned about being able to trust Donald Trump to keep his word.' 'What about justice for these young ladies who were trafficked? What about their justice? Don't they deserve justice?' These were just a few of the calls that besieged conservative radio hosts across the US this week. The president's ardent supporters spent the past decade fulminating over various foes, from Barack Obama and the deep state to undocumented immigrants and transgender children. Now they have a new target: Donald Trump himself. The 'Make America Great Again' (Maga) base is in revolt as never before. The trigger was Trump's broken promise to publicly release details about Jeffrey Epstein, a wealthy financier and convicted sex offender, who was facing federal charges of sex-trafficking minors when he died in jail in 2019. Spurred by the president and his allies, Trump's movement has long latched on to the Epstein scandal, claiming the existence of a secret client list and that he was murdered in his cell as part of a cover-up. But last week the justice department and Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI) announced there was no evidence that the disgraced financier kept such a list or was blackmailing powerful figures. Far from closing the case, the memo deepened supporters' obsession and sense of grievance. A movement defined by the view that elites rig the system against them felt cheated. Trump made efforts to douse the flames with ever-shifting explanations, excuses and distractions but merely poured fuel on the fire. To some, his erratic and evasive behaviour implies a guilty secret. It also evokes a line from President John F Kennedy's 1961 inaugural address: 'Those who foolishly sought power by riding the back of the tiger ended up inside.' Having spent years embracing QAnon-tinged propaganda that casts him as the only saviour who can demolish the 'deep state', Trump is now seen as co-opted by its corrupt bureaucracy. Joe Walsh, a former Republican congressman who ran against Trump for president in 2020, said: 'I talk to the base every day and nothing animates the base more than the deep state. This Epstein thing was Trump's promise. This was going to finally expose the deep state. Now Trump says nothing there? It ain't going to stand.' Epstein was first charged with sex offences in 2006 after the parents of a 14-year-old girl told police that he had molested their daughter at his Florida home. He avoided federal charges due to a controversial plea deal that saw him jailed for just under 13 months. In 2019 he was arrested again in New York and charged with trafficking dozens of teenage girls and engaging in sex acts with them in exchange for money. A separate case against Epstein's girlfriend Ghislaine Maxwell, who was jailed in 2022 for helping him abuse girls, detailed Epstein's connections with high-profile figures such as Britain's Prince Andrew and the former US president Bill Clinton. Both have denied any wrongdoing. In 2019 – during Trump's first term as president – Epstein was found dead in his prison cell after hanging himself, according to the authorities. Sceptics point to suspicious circumstances such as the security cameras around his cell apparently malfunctioning on the night he died, along with other irregularities. They also speculate that the government is concealing details about the Epstein case to protect wealthy and influential clients, including Trump, a longtime associate who in 2002 told New York magazine: 'I've known Jeff for 15 years. Terrific guy. He's a lot of fun to be with. It is even said that he likes beautiful women as much as I do, and many of them are on the younger side.' On Thursday the Wall Street Journal reported that Trump sent a letter featuring a sketch of a naked woman to Epstein in 2003. The president denied writing the letter or drawing the figure, and sued Rupert Murdoch and two Wall Street Journal newspaper reporters on Friday. When he was running for president, Trump said he would release files related to the case. But a bundle put out in February contained little new information. Then in June the spotlight turned back on the president when his former adviser Elon Musk claimed – in a now-deleted X post – that Trump is 'in the Epstein files'. Just a month later, a memo from the justice department and FBI said the Epstein files did not contain evidence that would justify further investigation. An almost 11-hour video published to dispel theories Epstein was murdered showed a section of the New York prison on the night Epstein died but appeared to be missing a minute of footage. The Maga faithful erupted in fury. Media personality Tucker Carlson, activist Laura Loomer and Trump's former adviser Steve Bannon claim the government's handling of the case lacks transparency. The far-right commentator Jack Posobiec said he would not rest 'until we go full Jan 6 committee on the Jeffrey Epstein files'. Baffled, flailing and unusually out of step, Trump used his Truth Social platform to call supporters off the Epstein trail amid reports of infighting between the attorney general, Pam Bondi, and the FBI deputy director, Dan Bongino, over the issue. 'What's going on with my 'boys' and, in some cases, 'gals'?' Trump wrote. 'They're all going after Attorney General Pam Bondi, who is doing a FANTASTIC JOB! We're on one Team, MAGA, and I don't like what's happening.' He suggested the turmoil was undermining his administration – 'all over a guy who never dies, Jeffrey Epstein'. Yet while Trump has defeated many political foes, he has never had to take on his own base. Taking a scattergun approach, he said he supported the release of any 'credible' files related to Epstein while downplaying the case as 'pretty boring stuff'. He suggested without citing evidence they were 'made up' by former FBI director James Comey and former presidents Barack Obama and Joe Biden. The president even lashed out at his own supporters, calling them 'weaklings' for falling for what he called a 'radical left' hoax by the opposition to discredit him. 'I don't want their support anymore!' he wrote. Some responded by burning their Maga caps in protest. Still the pressure continued to build. Mike Pence, his former vice-president, said in an interview with CBS News that 'the time has come for the administration to release all of the files regarding Jeffrey Epstein's investigation and prosecution'. Even Mike Johnson, the loyal Republican speaker of the House, broke from Trump on the issue and urged the justice department to make public any documents linked to Epstein. A small but growing band of House Republicans followed suit. Musk put dozens of posts on X accusing Trump of a 'cover-up'. On Thursday the president made a concession by announcing that he will ask a court to allow the release of grand jury testimony in the case. It was the latest effort to defuse a crisis of his own making. His political career gained traction with the help of the 'birther' movement, pushing the racist idea that Barack Obama was born in Kenya and therefore an illegitimate president. He was content to accept support from followers of QAnon, an antisemitic theory involving Satan-worshipping cannibals and a child sex-trafficking ring. Trump also cultivated the ultimate political conspiracy theory that the 2020 presidential election was stolen from him by Joe Biden, a 'big lie' that culminated in the deadly insurrection at the US Capitol on 6 January 2021. Now he is finding that the nothing-to-see-here approach does not work for those who learned from him they must not give up until the government's secrets are exposed. Charlie Sykes, author of How the Right Lost Its Mind, said: 'He's being eaten by the very sort of conspiracy theory that propelled him into office in the first place. Donald Trump is a product of as well as a purveyor of conspiracy theories. He has marinated in conspiracy theories and used them to put him into the presidency so you do have what appears to be a giant irony that this particular conspiracy theory is the one that is haunting him. 'The ghost of Jeffrey Epstein is haunting Trump's presidency far more than any of the other issues that are out there now. Trump is finding out that, if you've pushed a conspiracy theory for years, it's very difficult to suddenly declare that it's non-existent or a hoax. He's doing this Jedi mind trick where he is trying to say, no this is not the conspiracy theory you actually care about.' Trump has already tested his base's loyalty in recent weeks by bombing Iran and pledging support for Ukraine, despite a pledge to avoid foreign entanglements, as well as signing a tax and spending bill that will strip health insurance from millions of people. But Epstein is different: a binary view of liberal elites as paedophiles, and Republicans as protectors of children, has become foundational. Sykes, a conservative author and broadcaster, commented: 'One of the reasons why the Maga base was so obsessed is that it gave them licence to genuinely hate and loathe their political opponents, to consider that the Democrats were not merely wrong on the issues, that they were part of this evil paedophile cabal. 'That is the justification for so much of what Trumpism has become and suddenly to pull the rug out from under the base was a radical and a risky move. For once Trump has overestimated his ability to shape reality to his own will.' It is a rare political gift for Democrats, who have been reeling since Trump's victory in November and struggling to thwart his expansion of presidential power. Several Democrats on Capitol Hill have called for the release of all Epstein files and suggested that Trump could be resisting because he or someone close to him is featured in them. Ro Khanna, a congressman from California whose measure that would have forced Bondi to publish all documents related to Epstein online was blocked by Republicans, said: 'The Republicans are basically protecting the rich and powerful. That's what the Epstein case is about: the rich and powerful men who were allegedly sleeping with underage girls and they should not have impunity. 'They're being protected, possibly because they're donors to people in Washington, because they play golf with people in Washington. So this is a question of whose side are you on? The Democratic party has a chance to have a rebirth of populism, to say we're on the side of the people, we get that this town hasn't worked for ordinary people for too long.' Some veterans of bareknuckle political fights of the past, however, warn that Democrats are still not rising to the moment. If the tables were turned and a Democratic president was suppressing such delicate information, it seems likely that Republicans would be aggressively flooding the airwaves demanding investigations and impeachment. Steve Schmidt, a political strategist and former campaign operative for George W Bush and John McCain, said: 'It's just weak. From a leadership perspective, there's an inability to put the knife in and twist it. 'There is a reluctance because of the tawdriness of it all to appreciate that for Democrats, they lost an election to the most prolific liar because he was perceived as being more honest in the eyes of the American people. This is a prime example to strip him of that in the eyes of his most fervent supporters, and at least move them by some percentage to the sidelines and demotivate them.' Schmidt advocates a national advertising campaign and series of town halls in which Democrats demand an end to the cover-up and ask what Trump and Bondi are hiding. 'This is a moment where Trump is weak, he's perturbed, he's disturbed – and what you do is you hit him.' Public opinion is turning against the president. A Reuters/Ipsos poll found that 69% of respondents thought the federal government was hiding details about Epstein's clients, compared with 6% who disagreed and about one in four who said they were not sure. Tara Setmayer, a Trump critic and former Republican communications director on Capitol Hill, believes the sense of betrayal could translate into a repudiation in next year's midterm elections for the House of Representatives and Senate. She said: 'Is there perhaps a political awakening happening with the most rabid of the Maga base? There may be some weakness here that could be exploited. Where it could hurt Trump in the midterms is by depressing the vote of Maga. They'll stay home and in these key swing districts where one or two percentage points difference can make all the difference in the House.' Walsh, the former congressman, agreed. He commented: 'It'll cause a lot of Trump supporters to not even vote because remember a lot of his supporters aren't Republicans; they are attached to him. If they're utterly disillusioned that the guy they thought was going to be the ultimate slayer of the deep state now is part of the deep state they're going to check out and that's going to hurt Republicans.' He added: 'Trump's legacy is the destruction of truth. He lies as he breathes and his lies to his supporters have made him popular among his supporters, so it's beautiful that he may actually be crucified on one of his lies.'
Wall Street Journal
2 days ago
- Politics
- Wall Street Journal
MAGA's Epstein Fault Line
We just witnessed a bit of political history. The Jeffrey Epstein story is big, and though it will be quieted eventually, it won't go away, it will stay as a fissure and may widen over time. The Trumpiest part of President Trump's base showed him—and showed itself—that it can buck him, push back in unison. He seemed startled. Maybe they are too. It struck me as not just a political event but a psychic one for his movement.
Yahoo
2 days ago
- Politics
- Yahoo
Seth Meyers Debunks Trump's ‘Full Hallucination' About His Uncle and the Unabomber
Amid ongoing efforts to not talk about the Epstein scandal, President Donald Trump went on a tangent about his uncle this week, claiming that the man taught Ted Kaczynski — a.k.a the Unabomber — and declared Kaczynski a good student. But on Wednesday night, Seth Meyers fully debunked that story. While speaking at the Pennsylvania Energy & Innovation Summit, the president paused to 'brag' about his uncle, 'because when I first heard about AI, you know, it's not my thing,' but his uncle worked at MIT. Trump repeated his claim that his uncle worked at the university for 51 years and was the longest serving professor at the school, neither of which is true. More from TheWrap Seth Meyers Debunks Trump's 'Full Hallucination' About His Uncle and the Unabomber | Video 'Untamed' Review: Eric Bana Is Excellent in Netflix's Moody Yosemite Mystery Senate Votes to Cut Federal Funding for PBS, NPR Stephen Colbert Channels the Beach Boys to Solve Latest Trump Mystery: 'What Happened to Jeffrey Epstein? God Only Knows' | Video 'Kaczynski was one of his students. Do you know who Kaczynski was? There's very little difference between a madman and a genius,' Trump said. 'But Kaczynski, I said, 'What kind of a student was he, Uncle John? Dr. John Trump.'' 'Then he said, 'Seriously, good.' He said he'd correct, he'd go around correcting everybody, but it didn't work out too well for him,' Trump continued. As the clip ended, Meyers paused to soak it in, before picking apart the story even further, beyond Trump's false claim about his uncle's tenure. 'It turns out, A) the Unabomber didn't go to MIT,' Meyers explained (which is true, Kaczynski actually went to Harvard). 'And B) Trump's uncle died 10 years before Kaczynski became known as the Unabomber,' he continued. 'So the whole thing we just heard wasn't just a small lie, it was like a full hallucination. Including the conversation Trump made up between him and his uncle. Although, how could you tell it was made up? I mean, it sounded so natural.' The late night host then mimicked the exchange, poking fun at the idea that Trump would refer to his uncle as Dr. John Trump in casual conversation. You can watch Seth Meyers's full 'A Closer Look' segment in the video above. The post Seth Meyers Debunks Trump's 'Full Hallucination' About His Uncle and the Unabomber | Video appeared first on TheWrap.
RNZ News
3 days ago
- Politics
- RNZ News
Trump slams own supporters as Epstein row grows
By Danny Kemp, AFP Photo: AFP / Brendan Smialowski US President Donald Trump has blasted his own supporters and "stupid" Republicans as he went on the attack against anyone questioning his administration's handling of the case of dead sex criminal Jeffrey Epstein. Trump took his most combative tone yet to try to shut down the issue, after days of struggling to brush off a conspiracy theory that his base has long embraced, but which he now claims is a Democratic hoax. Trump, 79, began on Wednesday by saying that "my PAST supporters have bought into this 'bull****', hook, line and sinker", in a post on his Truth Social network, and calling them "weaklings". He later took aim at his own party. "It's all been a big hoax. It's perpetrated by the Democrats. And some stupid Republicans and foolish Republicans fall into the net and so they try and do the Democrats' work," Trump told reporters in the Oval Office. Trump is facing the most serious split in his loyal right-wing base since he returned to power, over claims that his administration is covering up lurid details of disgraced financier Epstein's crimes to protect rich and powerful figures. Epstein died by suicide in a New York prison in 2019 -- during Trump's first term -- after being charged with sex trafficking in a scheme where he allegedly groomed young and underage women for sexual abuse by the rich and powerful. The Trump-supporting far-right has long latched on to the scandal, claiming the existence of a still-secret list of Epstein's powerful clients and that the late financier was in fact murdered in his cell as part of a cover-up. Trump supporters expected the Republican to answer their questions on his return to office this January but now find themselves being told the conspiracy theories are false. The Justice Department and FBI said in a memo made public earlier this month there is no evidence that the disgraced financier kept a "client list" or was blackmailing powerful figures. They also dismissed the claim that Epstein was murdered in jail, confirming his death by suicide, and said they would not be releasing any more information on the probe. Trump doubled down when he faced repeated questions on the issue during a visit with Bahrain's visiting crown prince, pinning the blame for the wild conspiracy theories on his opponents. He then sought to deflect, rattling off what he said were a list of his economic and foreign policy achievements and complaining that people were instead "talking about a guy who obviously had some very serious problems who died three, four years ago". "And the sad part, it is people that are really doing the Democrats work. They're stupid people." Asked if his post describing supporters who questioned the White House's line as "past" was effectively disowning them, Trump replied: "I lost a lot of faith in certain people, yes". Trump is one of the many currently famous people who were formerly friends with Epstein, but denies having gone to his notorious US Virgin Islands home. He said ahead of his election he would have "no problem" releasing files on the case. But his administration's attempts to brush the issue under the carpet instead have sparked fury among supporters. Beyond that, the issue has opened a schism within his administration, sparking a fiery blow-up between Attorney General Pam Bondi and Deputy FBI Director Dan Bongino, who is said to be considering resigning. Trump on Wednesday reiterated that Bondi could release "whatever's credible" in the files. But criticism of Trump's handling of the issue continued -- even from some of his closest allies. Republican Senator Ted Cruz told reporters: "I have long said we should release everything". Retired general Michael Flynn, Trump's former national security advisor in his first term who resigned after lying to the FBI about his contacts with Russia, said the "roll out of this was terrible, no way around that". "It is NOT about Epstein or the left. It is about committing crimes against CHILDREN," added Flynn, a frequent stoker of conspiracy theories whom Trump appointed to a board overseeing US military service academies back in March. - AFP
