As much as the president wants the MAGA faithful to stop demanding transparency over the Jeffrey Epstein saga, there seems to be no letup. One week after the Department of Justice (DOJ) released a memo many find simply unbelievable, the MAGA backlash continues, with some major influencers who campaigned for Trump turning on the president.
There is speculation that the Epstein backlash single-handedly dropped the president’s approval rating. Newsweek noted on Monday:
Donald Trump’s approval rating has dropped in two polls as he faces criticism for his administration’s handling of the Jeffrey Epstein scandal. The president lost six approval points in a Morning Consult poll and one point in a Napolitan News Service poll between surveys taken last month and this month.
The Memo
The Department of Justice and FBI released a memo on June 7 concluding that Jeffrey Epstein indeed killed himself, that there is no client list, and that there is no “credible evidence” that Epstein blackmailed powerful people. The DOJ also released an 11-hour, supposedly unedited, prison video as part of an effort to convince the American people of this incredulous story.
The DOJ message was, essentially, “case closed, now move on.” But a week later, tempers are still flaring at a move that screams coverup as reports that cast further doubt on the new narrative continue emerging.
The Video
On Friday, tech magazine Wired published a report saying that the recently released prison video was likely modified. According to Wired:
Metadata embedded in the video and analyzed by WIRED and independent video forensics experts shows that rather than being a direct export from the prison’s surveillance system, the footage was modified, likely using the professional editing tool Adobe Premiere Pro. The file appears to have been assembled from at least two source clips, saved multiple times, exported, and then uploaded to the DOJ’s website, where it was presented as “raw” footage.
In the report, Wired said experts don’t know what exactly was changed and that the changes don’t necessarily “prove deceptive manipulation.”
The video was already suspect because the prison doors it showed looked different from a photo released in 2019 of Epstein’s cell door. It was also missing the entire minute before midnight. When reporters asked Attorney General Pam Bondi about the missing minute, she blamed it on outdated technology that omits the same minute every night.
As for the discrepancy between the doors, the recently released video was recorded by a camera in the common area of the Special Housing Unit that lead to Epstein’s cell door. It just so happened that the cameras right outside Epstein’s cell malfunctioned that night.
Bondi’s Claims
The recent outrage has come with reminders that Bondi told Fox News back in February that she had the Epstein client list on her desk. She now claims she was referring to all the files, not the specific client list. But it’s more likely she referred to the client list because that’s exactly what she was asked about, and because her answer was “It’s sitting on my desk right now,” apparently referring to a single list. See the exchange below.
Epstein’s former attorney, law professor Alan Dershowitz, told former White House Communications Director Sean Spicer that he personally saw the client list. Dershowitz also said that Epstein documents are being “deliberately, willfully suppressed” to shield certain people. “Hand to God, I know the names of the people whose files are being suppressed in order to protect them, and that’s wrong,” he said, according to reports.
Dershowitz said the coverup is part of deliberate effort to protect the powerful. When asked if the people on the list are politicians or business magnates, the lawyer, who’s had to deflect accusations of sexual misbehavior himself, said, “They’re everything.”
Then there was “bindergate,” the humiliating episode where influencers were invited to the White House in February to receive their “Phase I” binders of Epstein files. The binders, despite their thickness, included no new information, but they did suggest there was a Phase II folder with more information coming soon.
Carlson Upset
Among the most visibly upset in MAGA Land was Tucker Carlson, who has spent time with Trump and campaigned for him in 2024. Over the weekend at a Turning Point USA event in Florida, he delivered a searing speech tearing into the Trump administration.
“I think that’s really at the heart of why the Epstein thing is so distressing. The fact that the U.S. government — the one that I voted for — refused to take my question seriously and instead said, ‘case closed, shut up conspiracy theorists’ was too much for me,” Carlson told the crowd.
Carlson said he was so mad about it that he found out part of what’s going on. He said there will likely be more information coming out. According to what he heard, the reason the DOJ couldn’t release incriminating evidence is because they don’t have it. When the original search warrant was signed in the mid-2000s, it was written up to protect Epstein. “The search warrant was written in such a way to make sure that the feds never got their hands on the actual incriminating evidence, another way of saying that the coverup has been going on … almost 20 years,” he said.
Carlson then took a direct shot at Trump by invoking the July 8 Cabinet meeting during which the president tried to deflect a reporter’s question about Epstein to a discussion about other matters, including the flooding in Texas. Carlson said:
The real question is “Why was he [abusing girls]? On who’s behalf? And where did the money come from?” Those are the questions that need to be answered. And I think it’s entirely fair to ask them. And it’s not adequate to say anyone who asks them is somehow desecrating the memory of little girls who died in Texas. I’m not going to put up with that answer. I don’t care who gives that answer. That is not acceptable.
Intel Agency Connections
The former Fox host also alleged that Epstein was conducting blackmail operations for foreign intelligence agencies. “I think the real answer is Jeffrey Epstein was working on behalf of intel services, probably not American. We have every right to ask on whose behalf he was working,” he said. He added:
It’s extremely obvious to anyone who watches that this guy had direct connections to a foreign government. No one’s allowed to say that that foreign government is Israel, because we have been somehow cowed into thinking that’s naughty.… People … can’t say “What the hell is this? You have the former Israeli prime minister living in your house, you’ve had all this contact with a foreign government. Were you working on behalf of Mossad? Were you running a blackmail operation on behalf of a foreign government?”
The suspicion that Epstein was working for intelligence is believed by some of the top researchers on the subject. Whitney Webb, who wrote a two-volume series on Epstein titled One Nation Under Blackmail, believes Epstein probably worked for Mossad, CIA, MI5, and/or even Soviet intelligence.
The idea that Epstein was intel was also reportedly floated by U.S. Attorney for the Southern District of Florida, Alex Acosta, when he was asked while being vetted for labor secretary position in early 2017 why he agreed to such a lenient sentence for Epstein in 2007. Reportedly, Acosta said he had cut the non-prosecution deal in 2007 because he was told Epstein was “above his pay grade” and “belonged to intelligence.” He was told to “leave it alone.”
Former Israeli Prime Minister Naftali Bennett has shot back at Carlson’s allegations that Epstein worked for Mossad. Bennett said on Monday he had “100% certainty” that Epstein had no ties to Mossad.
What’s the Truth?
Whatever the truth is, whoever Epstein worked for, it’s clear the U.S. government is holding on to far more information than it admits. A series of theories have been floated as to why, with some claiming that it would destroy innocent people, to others suggesting the government is protecting itself by not divulging information that would implicate it in some of the most evil crimes. Some theories even posit that Epstein isn’t dead, that he was switched out and some sort of suicide was staged.
Every theory has its holes, so perhaps it’s best the Trump administration comes clean and restores some semblance of faith that not everyone who ends up in power is inevitably drawn into a black hole of lies, deceit, and corruption. The Epstein saga is not so much about the man as it is about Americans needing to know that it’s possible to have leadership that isn’t wholly corrupt and under the sway of conspiratorial forces.
