The second Trump administration has featured many scandals: his shameless corruption, his pardoning of the January 6th insurrectionists, his pushing a Bill that strips millions from healthcare to give more money to those who need it the least, his backing for the Israeli genocide of Palestinians and Israel’s other reckless wars in the Middle East.
All these things seem more important than whether his justice department relents and releases its files on the Jeffrey Epstein case.
Yet, this is the one scandal from which Trump can’t seem to escape, and the one that might prove the most damaging for him politically.
No one is more aware of this than Trump himself. It is a sign of his desperation to move on from the Epstein story that on Wednesday – at a bizarre press conference with the president of the Philippines looking on – he ranted about Barack Obama’s supposed corruption.
EU-US deal good for Ireland as it averts trade war but vital details remain unclear
Paudie Clifford says Kerry players felt ‘disrespected’ after being branded a ‘one-man team’
From a viewing platform in Israel, observers watch Gaza’s destruction through binoculars
Joanna Lumley: ‘I love Ireland as much as you can if you’re not an Irish person’
He claimed that Obama was guilty of “treason” and that he tried to “lead a coup” with faked intelligence about Russian interference in the election. It was a transparent effort to change the story. The embattled Trump even admitted as much: “It’s time to go after people.”
In the past, he has had a brilliant knack for deflecting negative attention from himself to others. During the 2016 campaign, it seemed like he was finished when the Access Hollywood tapes emerged which captured him bragging about groping women. But before the next presidential debate, he assembled a press conference of several women who claimed to be victims of sexual harassment by Bill Clinton.
It worked then; it allowed enough voters to come to the cynical conclusion that all politicians are equally corrupt.
The tactic is unlikely to work this time. Attacking Obama is something of a reflex for Trump, who rose to prominence promoting the “birther” conspiracy theory that Obama was born outside the US. Trump’s run for the presidency was, people close to him has said, partly a desire for vengeance against Obama after the then-president mercilessly mocked him at the fateful 2011 White House correspondents’ dinner (Obama’s quips included: “No one is happier, no one is prouder to put this birth certificate matter to rest than the Donald. And that’s because he can finally get back to focusing on the issues that matter–— like, did we fake the Moon landing”).
But Obama is arguably the politician that the public would least expect to have anything to do with a sexual predator like Epstein. Bill Clinton was in fact friends with Epstein, but his presidency ended so long ago that attacking him just doesn’t have much purchase any more.
[ White House claims ‘fake news’ over reports Donald Trump named in Epstein filesOpens in new window ]
This time, Trump hasn’t been able to shift the narrative. That is partly because, as Ciarán O’Connor wrote this week, once the flames of conspiracy theories have been fanned, they are difficult to extinguish. But it is also because it goes to the same open secret that was at the centre of the Access Hollywood scandal: Trump’s serial pattern of sexual abuse makes the notion that he has something to hide more plausible.
To paraphrase congresswoman Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez, who would have thought that electing a sexual offender would have complicated the release of the Epstein files?
In 2023, a civil court ruled that Trump had sexually abused E Jean Carroll. By one count, at least 18 women have accused Trump of sexual assault or sexual harassment.
The controversy over the release of the Epstein files has also resurfaced, leading to renewed attention on Trump’s once close relationship with him. Epstein’s brother has suggested that Trump was once Jeffrey Epstein’s “best friend”. The Wall Street Journal published a card that it claimed Trump sent Epstein on his 50th birthday with a lewd drawing of a woman and a reference to a “wonderful secret”. Trump is suing the Wall Street Journal for $10 billion over the report, which he vehemently denies.
It’s possible that there is nothing in the Epstein files that reveals damaging information about Trump.
But that is now almost beside the point. The political significance of the Epstein controversy is that it has hurt Trump’s standing among his own base, which was already upset about his breaking America First principles by joining Israel’s war against Iran. Though Trump has been unpopular with many Americans for most of the last decade, his political strength has been the unshakeable support of his base, which has allowed him to dominate the Republican Party.
[ Bill Clinton reportedly sent Jeffrey Epstein note for birthday albumOpens in new window ]
As he himself once boasted, “I could stand in the middle of Fifth Avenue and shoot somebody and I wouldn’t lose any voters.” But it is symptomatic of his hubris that he promoted the conspiracy theory about Epstein, someone who was once a close associate.
Under pressure from a disaffected Maga base, a significant number of Republican legislators broke with Trump for the first time in this second term.
Rather than face a vote on whether to release the Epstein files that he was certain to lose, House Speaker Mike Johnson simply declared that they would break for summer early, even though that meant abandoning parts of the Republican agenda.
But significantly, three Republicans on the ten-member House Committee on Oversight joined Democrats to subpoena the justice department for its Epstein files. Republicans Nancy Mace of South Carolina, Scott Perry of Pennsylvania and Brian Jack of Georgia sided with Democrats.
Democrats certainly don’t consider the Epstein case to be the most significant issue facing the US – but they smell a rare political opportunity to exploit cracks in the Maga movement. They recognise that Trump is in a lose-lose situation. It seems unlikely he will release any information too damaging about himself.
Yet, if he refuses to release files or releases them but there’s nothing significant in them, many – and not only conspiracy theorists – will wonder if key information is being withheld.
It’s certainly possible that the Epstein controversy will blow over. Come September, when the US legislature reconvenes, we may all be talking about something else: a national or world crisis, quite possibly one of Trump’s own making.
And yet the cracks it has revealed in MAGA are potentially disastrous for Trump’s power, dampening enthusiasm for Republican candidates at the next election, and undermining his tight control of the Republican Party.
