Late last week, as I drove home from my office in Washington to the Northern Virginia suburbs, I was shocked to see a protester with a sign that read “Release the Epstein List.”
It’s certainly not unusual to see people around our nation’s capital holding signs with all sorts of political messages. And where I saw this sign—on a pedestrian bridge spanning the freeway—is a favorite spot for protests, with its captive audience of evening commuters. Over the years, I’ve seen dozens of different causes advocated from this particular bridge, but they’ve been almost exclusively progressive or Democrat-coded. Signs touting support for immigrants and abortion rights, Palestinian flags, and, most recently, a banner declaring “No Kings” have all graced this bridge in Arlington County.
But a demand that the federal government release the likely nonexistent list that the late financier and convicted sexual predator Jeffrey Epstein kept, for blackmail purposes, of high-profile, politically connected clients for his sex-trafficking ring? This is the cause célèbre of the fever swamps of MAGA world, not the educated, over-informed lefties of the People’s Republic of Arlington (where Donald Trump won less than 20 percent of the vote in 2024). And while there’s reason to think this sign was an ironic troll of some of Trump’s most devoted supporters, there are also some indications that anti-Trump voices are merely reappropriating the theory to gain the upper political hand over Trump.
“The American people deserve to know the truth, the whole truth, and nothing but the truth as it relates to this whole sordid Jeffrey Epstein matter,” said Rep. Hakeem Jeffries, the House minority leader, on Monday. “What, if anything, is the Trump administration and the Department of Justice hiding?”
Another House Democrat, Rep. Jamie Raskin, went even further on a podcast this weekend. “Either Donald Trump is himself implicated” in Epstein’s illegal actions, Raskin said, or at least that Trump “clearly knew what was going on.”
We live in an era of political confusion, driven in no small part by a debilitating addiction to conspiracy theories and an impulse for partisans to grab whatever rationalization is close at hand to win the debate of the moment. From explaining away electoral defeats as the result of cheating to being carried away with the most outlandish rumors, politicians are more than willing to play along with many voters’ willingness to believe the worst of their opponents. But as the whole Epstein fiasco has demonstrated, there comes a time when those who have been led to believe the conspiracy is about to be exposed demand the goods—and the results are often underwhelming.
That’s been the recent experience for the highest levels of the Trump administration. For the last week, some of Trump’s most devoted supporters have expressed rage at the Department of Justice’s memo regarding the investigations into Epstein’s 2019 death in a federal prison. The memo affirmed the FBI’s conclusion that Epstein had, in fact, committed suicide. It trumpeted a “systematic review” that “revealed no incriminating ‘client list’” nor any evidence Epstein had attempted to blackmail prominent people. It confirmed that the DOJ will not disclose any more of its files or materials, much of which the memo claimed was sealed by a court, or was just Epstein’s child pornography collection that should not be released to the public.
The MAGA fury comes from the fact that many of the same figures saying there was nothing to the conspiracy theories surrounding Epstein—from Attorney General Pam Bondi to FBI Director Kash Patel—had just a few months prior been feeding those theorists.
“He’s going to come in there and maybe give them the Epstein list,” Patel said on a podcast in November 2024, speaking of the just-elected Trump.
“It’s sitting on my desk right now to review,” Bondi said of the supposed “client list” on Fox News back in February. “That’s been a directive by President Trump.”
You can understand the whiplash felt by those who, like believers in the QAnon conspiracy before it, expected Trump to finally unveil what many had convinced themselves existed: proof that many of the country’s most powerful people were secretly pedophiles. But the DOJ memo did more than just pour cold water on this idea—it reinforced the idea that the conspiracy continues and perhaps Trump himself is a conspirator.
So it’s no surprise that Trump is now trying to quash any further conversation about Epstein and his administration’s investigation into him. Last week, during a Cabinet meeting, the president snapped at a reporter who asked a set of questions about Epstein. Then, on Truth Social Saturday, Trump posted a lengthy defense of Bondi against criticism from his biggest fans, as well as a directive to those fans to move on.
“What’s going on with my ‘boys’ and, in some cases, ‘gals?’ 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 posted in part. “One year ago our Country was DEAD, now it’s the ‘HOTTEST’ Country anywhere in the World. Let’s keep it that way, and not waste Time and Energy on Jeffrey Epstein, somebody that nobody cares about.”
Trump’s command of his base of support is stronger than just about any other American politician in recent history, but this Epstein episode is a test of that command. At best, Trump has had to suffer a week or so of annoying news coverage and some anger from his most devoted followers. At worst, he’s lost a critical level of credibility from those selfsame followers. Some in the MAGA media ecosystem seem to have gotten the message about laying off the subject, while others are spiraling off into wilder theories. Which way will Trump’s base go?
The week-plus-long headache this has caused the president is unlikely to convince him to avoid stoking the flames of other conspiracy theories—they’ve been his political bread and butter since he was demanding to see Barack Obama’s birth certificate. But if there’s a lesson here for other politicians, it may be that humoring your movement’s id isn’t without costs. Liberals currently reveling in their own Epstein theorizing should proceed with caution.
