President Donald Trump has realized that the Jeffrey Epstein sex trafficking case saga is tearing apart the MAGA base — so he is trying to tamp down the conspiracy theories with a new — even more bizarre — one, Steve Benen wrote in an analysis for MSNBC.
For years, the Trump base has believed — with the encouragement of Trump himself and many people like Kash Patel who are now at the highest ranks of his law enforcement operation — that the FBI was sitting on a hidden "client list" detailing the deceased financier's ties to liberal celebrities and politicians who were presumably in on his trafficking operation. But the Justice Department's announcement this month that the case is closed and the "list" does not exist has led to many in MAGA world calling for Attorney General Pam Bondi's termination, which Trump is trying to stave off.
On Saturday, Benen continued, Trump tried a completely new direction for the narrative: that the entire Epstein conspiracy theory had been cooked up by his political enemies.
"Why are we giving publicity to Files written by Obama, Crooked Hillary, Comey, Brennan, and the Losers and Criminals of the Biden Administration. ... They created the Epstein Files, just like they created the FAKE Hillary Clinton/Christopher Steele Dossier that they used on me, and now my so-called ‘friends’ are playing right into their hands," he wrote on Truth Social.
In other words, Benen wrote, "according to Trump, the so-called Epstein files were written by Barack Obama (who left office in early 2017), Hillary Clinton (who left office in early 2013), former FBI Director James Comey (who left office in 2017) and former CIA Director John Brennan (who left office in early 2017). How could they have 'created the Epstein Files' given that they were nowhere near public office when Trump’s own team tried to prosecute him? I haven’t the foggiest idea, and Trump’s weird tantrum never explained how this could even be possible."
Even Trump's own supporters are bound to feel the whiplash of Trump's ever-changing story, Benen concluded.
"What started with (1) the 'Epstein Files' are real and important, transformed into (2) the 'Epstein Files' don’t actually exist so everyone should just move on, has now evolved into (3) the 'Epstein Files' do exist, but they’re fake," he wrote. "If the White House was counting on this new line shutting down the chatter and speculation, it should probably lower its expectations."
