Republicans Turn Epstein Into a Weapon Against Themselves

Trump unleashed on Truth Social today and called the Epstein files story a “scam” and accused supporters of buying into “bullshit.”

Hoo boy. It doesn’t look good to repeatedly tell people for years that the Epstein case matters and then when Republicans control the levers in DC they pull a 180 and call voters “stupid” for believing them.

The real kicker is that this entire story began with implicating the husband of the 2016 Democrat presidential nominee — a Democrat problem — and Republicans are now literally weaponizing it against themselves because they’re absolute morons.

Of course Democrats are seizing on this now. They were silent about it under Biden, and ran from it during the 2016 race. Now that they have some space via irrelevancy, they’re braver and see an opportunity to fracture the right with a messaging problem of the Republicans’s own making.

The specter of both the files and the famed client list were present at nearly every campaign event, interview, and numerous social media posts.

This is just some of what’s out there. My point for including it is to show that his discussion of it is one of the reasons Republican voters also focused on it. So if it is a “hoax” now, was it then when he was mentioning what he’d do with it during interviews and rallies? What gives? If it’s a “hoax” now, then the staged, cheesy photo op where influencers were given binders of already-publicly available case info that was presented as the full files/clientele list was a hoax. If it is a hoax now it was a hoax then.

I said this earlier, and I still believe it’s true:

I don’t at all believe that Trump is implicated in anything, because if he were, Hillary Clinton would have led with it in 2016. Her husband was, which is why the Trump campaign began talking up Epstein in the first place.

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What worries me about this is that we are approaching midterm election season. We don’t need POTUS fighting with voters and alienating his loyal base. People are genuinely mad. It dominates my comments on every social media platform and email feedback. It trends daily on social media. It comes up during conversations at every political event. Trump’s messaging should be “I want to get to the bottom of this as much as you do, and with full transparency, I’m releasing everything (barring inappropriate video or photographic evidence of illegal activities and redacting names of minor persons).” The admin should create a searchable website for it — like what was done with USAID waste and abuse and Hunter Biden’s laptop — and call it a day.

Trump said perviously he was concerned as to whether or not innocent people merely associated would be wrongly incriminated by the release, but that isn’t his problem or anyone else’s. The ship for concern sailed on that long ago. He can’t run for the White House again therefore, he doesn’t need to balance the interests of political favors with voter concerns. Voters will protect him for following through.

Here is what Trump needs to realize: The case is less about Epstein and more about the two-tiered system of justice in this country. For the past decade people watched as lawmakers dined at French Laundry and got their hair done while their children were forced to isolate for a year and learn at home. They watched as leftist activists burned down their cities with little repercussions as the former Vice-President promoted their bail funds on X. They read how Hunter Biden’s sister-in-law-lover threw a pistol in a trash can across the street from an elementary school in a gun control state with no penalty, or how Hunter Biden lied on his 4473 when buying said gun — a criminal offense that would land the rest of us in jail — with no penalty. They increasingly feel like serfs in their own republic, unequal before the law and under it. The Epstein case became the avatar for this system of injustice, the story of a monster with money and connections who preyed on the vulnerable and kept secrets for the elite that enlisted his services. You can’t just tell people to “get over” it.

This case isn’t the Russian collusion case. That case was fake. This isn’t the Alvin Bragg New York record-keeping case. That case was fabricated and beyond the statute of limitations anyway. This case is real. Epstein and Ghislaine Maxwell (finally) went to jail for some of their crimes. Neither of them went to jail over a hoax.

As far as Bondi, Patel, and others, I actually don’t fault them in this mess because I think they were thrown into the existing chaos and are simply trying to keep their heads above the water. I’ll only fault them if they refuse to fulfill their promises of transparency.

As I said, my concern is that Trump if continues to fight with his base it could reasonably imperil Republican midterm chances in a cycle where it will be a brawl to keep our majorities. If we lose the House you can bet on a second Trump impeachment, to say nothing of the end of DOGE-inspired spending reductions, et al. No one wants this. We can’t get this close to (modest) reforms only to lose it over something that should be a win for Republicans. It’s insane and shouldn’t be the issue that it is precisely because it’s such a winning issue for the GOP.

Anyone shocked at the blowback to this has bad political acumen. Anyone telling you to get over it can’t read the room. Voters cannot be made the scapegoat for a party’s backfired political tactics.

*UPDATE: This is a good move — Trump reportedly appointing a special prosecutor for the case.

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