Once champions of fringe causes, now in a ‘trap of their own making'

Boston Globe

4 hours ago

Investigations into Epstein's 2019 death in a Manhattan prison cell found serious management errors but no evidence of criminality. Yet Trump, once a friend of the financier accused of sexually abusing dozens of teenage girls, has long suggested Epstein was silenced by shadowy clients of his sex trafficking ring. In a 2023 episode of his popular podcast, Bongino, now the bureau's No. 2 official, implored listeners, 'Please do not let that story go.'
Advertisement
They obliged. A Trump-allied podcaster suggested the FBI leaders were 'beholden to some unseen powers.' A former FBI agent who has been critical of the bureau posted a parody of a law firm ad with Bongino standing next to a sign that read 'Trust Me & Bro Consulting.' Tucker Carlson, a friend of Bongino's, said Trump appointees were 'making a huge mistake, promising to reveal things and then not revealing them.' Alex Jones, a founding father of the modern conspiracy movement, referred to Patel's own handling of the Epstein case as flat-out 'gaslighting.'
Get Starting Point
A guide through the most important stories of the morning, delivered Monday through Friday.
Enter Email
Sign Up
Patel and Bongino, partisan showmen placed in positions previously held by people with greater experience, earned their bona fides in Trump's camp by promoting conspiracy theories, making promises of what they would accomplish under Trump when he returned to power based on fictional or exaggerated premises, pledging to reveal deep-state secrets, and vowing swift vengeance on their enemies.
Advertisement
It has now fallen on Patel, Bongino, and Attorney General Pam Bondi to make good on the promises explicit and implied — or show how hard they are trying. But they are running what amounts to a conspiracy theory fulfillment center with unstocked shelves, critics say.
'Patel, Bongino, and the other leaders are caught in a trap of their own making,' said Russell Muirhead, a politics professor at Dartmouth College who has studied the role of conspiracy theories in American politics.
'The world they helped create, a world in which conspiracy destroys facts, is now the world they have to inhabit,' he added.
Trump himself campaigned on the spurious idea that immigrant criminals had invaded the United States like a foreign army, but when courts began to reject that notion in a series of deportation cases centered on those his administration claimed had criminal records, his supporters blamed the judges, not him. He has flirted so often with the QAnon conspiracy theory, which falsely holds that prominent Democrats like Hillary Clinton are dangerous pedophiles, many followers still cannot fathom why Clinton and other plotters are not in prison.
One former Republican congressional staff member with ties to the White House, speaking on the condition of anonymity for fear of being targeted, said that the president's courting of far-right conspiracists had stoked expectations, creating a never-ending cycle of demands. The person likened it to feeding red meat to insatiable sharks. Or zombies.
Bondi learned that the hard way during her first weeks in office, when she promised new revelations about the Epstein case and faced a furious backlash when the materials she released were a dud. Anxious about any criticism that could erode her standing with Trump, she dispatched FBI agents and prosecutors from the Justice Department's national security division to scour the archives, officials familiar with the situation said. They found little but are still digging, according to Bongino.
Advertisement
Patel and other officials have claimed that releasing new material is difficult, and governed by the need to protect witnesses and Epstein's victims. Billionaire Elon Musk suggested another explanation in the wake of his falling-out with the president: Trump 'is in the Epstein files,' he wrote on social media Thursday, without providing evidence. 'That is why they have not been made public.'
Spokespeople for the Justice Department and FBI did not return requests for comment.
Patel and Bongino have limited their interactions to friendly podcasters or conservative outlets, claiming that the mainstream news media cannot be trusted to convey the truth. But those engagements also reflect an understanding that sustaining support on the right is essential for their survival, according to administration officials.
'I've been putting out the truth my entire career,' Patel told Joe Rogan, the popular podcaster who endorsed Trump, to explain his comments about the Epstein case. 'Why would I risk all of it on this guy?'
But many people, including Jones, were not buying it. 'Damage control,' he growled on his show.
The tension between practicing politics based on conspiracy theories and having to govern extends far beyond the FBI and the Justice Department's problems with the Epstein case. And those elevated to power by Trump know that the No. 1 rule is that he is never wrong and that their role is to absorb the criticism that cannot be aimed at him.
Advertisement
Days after the backlash over his Epstein comments, Bongino offered other promises — new investigations into other episodes that have gripped the president's base: the discovery of cocaine in the West Wing during the Biden administration, the leak of the draft Supreme Court opinion overturning abortion rights in 2022, and the discovery of pipe bombs near Republican and Democratic Party headquarters before the Jan. 6, 2021, attack on the Capitol, an unsolved crime that has already consumed significant law enforcement resources.
During another appearance on Fox, Bongino said the bureau was 'closing in on some suspects' in the planting of the bombs, while claiming that 'no one seemed to show any interest in this case.' In fact, investigators had conducted around 1,000 interviews, reviewed video evidence, and chased hundreds of tips before he arrived.
Trump, far from distancing himself from fringe actors in his party after retaking office, has drawn them closer. Laura Loomer, who has baselessly claimed that the Sept. 11 attacks were 'an inside job' and suggested school shootings were a ruse, has become a regular visitor to the White House with outsize influence on personnel matters.
Whether by design or happenstance, Bongino, a former midlevel Secret Service agent and New York City police officer, has emerged as the bureau's principal public defender, in addition to his official role running the bureau's day-to-day operations. The strain seems to be taking its toll.
'I gave up everything for this,' he lamented in another one of his Fox appearances. 'I stare at these four walls all day in D.C., by myself.'
Advertisement
This article originally appeared in