On Thursday, Attorney General Pam Bondi boasted that she had “declassified and publicly released files” related to the crimes of the dead and well-heeled pedophile Jeffrey Epstein. Because this is the Trump administration, though, that release was carried out in a bizarre and hamfisted fashion, with binders of materials handed out to 15 right-wing, pro-Trump figures handpicked by the administration. While the recipients exuberantly waved them around for the cameras just outside the White House, it quickly became obvious that these particular files, which included flight logs and a heavily redacted contact list, presented nothing new. Some had already been public for close to a decade.
Over the course of the day, the “release” devolved into a broad-scale civil war on the right, with Bondi accusing the FBI of failing to follow her declassification orders, and the MAGA influencers who were involved in the stunt trying to defend their role. In a predictably short period of time, some of those influencers quickly suggested that a deeper conspiracy was afoot.
“These swamp creatures at SDNY deceived Bondi, Kash, and YOU,” tweeted conservative commentator and binder recipient Liz Wheeler, who seemed to be pinning the blame on FBI agents in the Southern District of New York, the federal court district where both Epstein and Maxwell were charged. “Be outraged that the binder is boring. You should be. Because the evil deep state LIED TO YOUR FACE.”
“I had no idea what a furious frenzy this binder would cause,” wrote Jessica Reed Kraus, aka “Houseinhabit,” a gossip blogger who was given one of the binders at the White House. Kraus, who’s spent years trying to build relationships with Trump and Secretary of Health and Human Services Robert F. Kennedy Jr., has written a long series of blog posts arguing that Epstein accomplice Ghislaine Maxwell, while guilty, was also scapegoated by powerful men and took the fall for their misdeeds. Mike Cernovich, a men’s rights activist turned Pizzagate promoter turned self-styled journalist, was also on hand to receive a binder; later in the day, he released a 45-minute long live broadcast on X denouncing people who’d criticized the release as “cunts” and “hyenas.”
The MAGA right has long said that releasing new Epstein files, particularly his supposed “client list” detailing other celebrities who engaged in sex crimes against children alongside him, would be a priority under a new Trump administration.
But Julie K. Brown, a Miami Herald journalist who’s spent years breaking stories about Epstein’s crimes explained on Twitter/X before the White House’s event, there is no such definitive roster of names. “There is no Jeffrey Epstein client list,” she wrote. “Period. It’s a figment of the internet’s imagination—and a means to just slander people.”
Economy
Gov-Politics
