Trump wants you to forget the Epstein files. But he started the conversation.

USA Today

11 hours ago

After years of brushing aside evidence surrounding Jeffrey Epstein, namely his connections to the Clinton family, Democrats can now press their advantage and question Trump about his own connection.
To the dismay of President Donald Trump, people are still talking about Jeffrey Epstein, and a big reason for that is his adamant denial that there is anything worth finding out about the pedophilic trafficker who was once his friend.
The Epstein conspiracy was a key promise from Trump and many of his allies on the campaign trail. The conspiracy right has always been a crowd Trump wanted to appeal to, whether it be through this or the promise that he would release all of the JFK files.
Making promises you can't keep to a crowd as volatile as conspiracy theorists is ill-advised, and the Trump administration is feeling the effects of that now. They created this mess by playing with fire, and I have no sympathy for those getting burned as a result.
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The Trump administration has to deal with a problem it created
As a conservative, I have never really been one to obsess over the Epstein conspiracy theory, but it is odd even to me how distraught Trump is over the fact that people are asking questions about Epstein and his connections to him. There is a political answer for his actions: Trump is tired of people demanding answers that don't actually exist. Never did.
Remember, Trump made the release of the Epstein files a deliberate promise on the campaign trail. However, Pam Bondi, now the attorney general, Kash Patel, now the FBI director, and Dan Bongino, now the deputy FBI director, all made significant claims surrounding the Epstein files in the wake of their executive appointments.
Bondi also made a whole show of releasing binders of information on the Epstein case, which mostly turned out to contain nothing of significant interest, and certainly not the juicy details or a magical client list. Bondi had claimed the list was sitting on her desk during an interview, but has since walked back that claim.
All of this appealed to the far right, which loves a good conspiracy theory, particularly one that implicates the Clinton family. Conveniently, until the events of the past week or so, Trump's connections to Epstein were mostly ignored.
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Grand promises from Trump and members of his administration have let down those conspiracists who actually believed them. The result is that many now suspect those who made false promises must somehow be in on the cover-up, rather than the likely explanation that they simply promised information that does not exist.
The Epstein case is the perfect conspiracy theory
The Epstein case is the perfect conspiracy theory because it can be appropriated by both sides of the political aisle to implicate their own political opponents.
After years of brushing aside the evidence surrounding the Epstein conspiracy, namely connections to the Clinton family, Democrats can now press their advantage and question Trump about his own connections.
Both political parties can implicate their opponents in the Epstein scandal due to how well-connected the billionaire pedophile was. So long as no such list ever materializes, people of all political walks of life can claim that whoever they want to be implicated in the Epstein case are, in fact, implicated.
These people conveniently ignore the fact that any such list remaining buried would have had to make it through both the Biden administration and the Trump administration.
So the theory of these conspiracists is that a bipartisan cabal of powerful people, who haven't shown any desire to work together for decades, are working together to hide a magical list of possible pedophiles that implicates all of the right people.
Odds are, the evidence out there surrounding the Epstein case is, more or less, the real story. But don't expect that to stop conspiracists from using the prospect of more unsealed evidence as ammunition for their claims. And don't expect Trump or MAGA to let up anytime soon.
Dace Potas is an opinion columnist for USA TODAY and a graduate of DePaul University with a degree in political science.