EPSTEIN MESS A GROWING THREAT TO TRUMP. President Donald Trump is making increasingly strident denunciations of all the people, his own supporters included, who have called for the release of the Jeffrey Epstein files. Trump’s alarmed tone suggests he realizes the issue could metastasize and hurt him politically. But rather than prevent that, everything he is doing appears designed to make things worse.
The most ominous development is not the emergence of anything substantive about the case — that hasn’t happened — but rather the fact that Democrats have concluded they can damage Trump by turning Epstein into a cause. With a cooperative press — and the press is always cooperative when it comes to targeting Trump — Democrats can make Epstein an ordeal for the president. The goal, of course, is to put an end to the string of successes Trump has enjoyed recently.
Here’s the biggest danger. There doesn’t have to be any there there for the Epstein matter to hurt Trump. Remember that from 2016 through 2019, a coalition of Democrats, activist groups, lawfare warriors, and the press assailed Trump every hour of every day over the allegation that the Trump campaign “colluded” with Russia in the 2016 election. In 2019, a special counsel who had spent two years investigating, and who had full law enforcement powers, conceded that he was unable to establish that any collusion — the legal terms were conspiracy or coordination — ever occurred.
It didn’t matter. The damage had been done — damage that virtually crippled Trump in the first two and a half years of his presidency. Trump now calls the entire Russia affair a hoax, but it was nonetheless a political success for Democrats.
Now, there appears to be no evidence to implicate Trump in any wrongdoing related to Epstein. Yes, there is a lot of what, in a long-ago scandal, one editor memorably called “hush hush and heavy breathing” — dramatic talk about an alleged Epstein client list, famous names, alleged blackmail, and the manner of Epstein’s death in prison. But anything implicating Trump, going back decades? No.
On Wednesday, Alan Dershowitz, who was one of Epstein’s lawyers beginning in the 2000s, published an op-ed in the Wall Street Journal arguing that “there is really nothing much to see, beyond what has already been disclosed” in the Epstein files. Of course, it is important to remember that a lot has already been disclosed. But new stuff? This is what Dershowitz wrote:
Epstein never created a “client list.” The FBI interviewed alleged victims who named several “clients.” These names have been redacted. They should be disclosed but the courts have ordered them sealed. I know who they are. They don’t include any current officeholders. We don’t know whether the accusations are true. The courts have also sealed negative information about some of the accusers to protect them. Neither the Justice Department nor private defense lawyers are free to disregard court sealing orders. The media can and should petition the courts for the release of all names and information so the public can draw its own conclusions.”
Trump would certainly be excluded under Dershowitz’s statement about “any current officeholders.” (Although it could include a name like Bill Clinton.) To be more specific, Dershowitz added: “Open records show an acquaintance between Epstein and Mr. Trump many years ago. That relationship ended when Mr. Trump reportedly banned Epstein from Mar-a-Lago, long before becoming president. I have seen nothing that would suggest anything improper or even questionable by Mr. Trump.”
Finally, Dershowitz said he believes the evidence is “clear” that Epstein committed suicide.
Now, some may say that Dershowitz is not a reliable source on this subject. First, he was Epstein’s lawyer, and second, he has admitted that he received a massage at Epstein’s home — Dershowitz said he got the massage from a “middle-aged woman who gave me a shoulder and neck massage.” There is no evidence Dershowitz did anything more than that.
If you don’t believe Dershowitz, there is David Schoen, another one of Epstein’s lawyers from the 2000s, who has said, “I don’t believe for a second there’s a client list out there. That wasn’t Jeffrey Epstein.”
Of course, Epstein did keep a “little black book” of contacts. It is public, released during a civil suit. You can buy it on Amazon. This points to the fact that an enormous amount of information about the Epstein case has already been released. You want to see the Justice Department inspector general’s report on Epstein’s death? It’s right there on the internet. Plus, there has been a huge amount of publicly available reporting on the case over the course of several years.
In a Truth Social post on Wednesday, Trump went off on Democrats and Epstein scandal enthusiasts, including some of his own MAGA supporters. The problem, he said, is that his supporters are being taken in by Democratic BS. “Their new SCAM is what we will forever call the Jeffrey Epstein Hoax, and my PAST supporters have bought into this ‘bull****,’ hook, line, and sinker,” Trump wrote. “They haven’t learned their lesson, and probably never will, even after being conned by the Lunatic Left for 8 long years.”
Trump had more for his supporters: “Let these weaklings continue forward and do the Democrats’ work, don’t even think about talking of our incredible and unprecedented success, because I don’t want their support anymore!”
The president might as well have hired a banner plane to fly over Washington, D.C., with the message: THIS IS GETTING UNDER MY SKIN.
So what now? Democrats want the appointment of a special counsel, which would be the worst possible outcome for Trump. Special counsel investigations go on and on, inevitably involve mission creep, and are the source of damaging leaks about the target — Trump — that stretch over the course of years. Appointing a special counsel in the Epstein matter, in which the main subject is dead and everything that can be known is already in the possession of law enforcement, seems like a particularly crazy idea.
Lacking that, Democrats want Congress to demand that the Justice Department hand over Epstein documents. Actually, Democrats don’t really want the documents — they just want to force Republicans to have to cast a potentially embarrassing vote on a politically explosive issue.
Both Democratic calculations are premised on the idea that focusing on the Epstein matter will damage Republicans, and not Democrats. Maybe that will turn out to be true. But maybe not. If there are any other big political names still unknown in the Epstein affair — and there probably are not — they might just as easily be Democrats as Republicans.
In any event, the solution is for the Justice Department to release as much of the Epstein material as it legally can. Some items, as Dershowitz wrote, are under court seal. Others, like information about victims, are protected by privacy restrictions. But there is other information that could be released. In addition, journalists could appeal to the courts to reconsider the sealing of other information. The more that gets out, the better.