The GOP's Epstein problem is far from over

The House passed a bill this week that would force the Department of Justice to release what’s now known as the Epstein files. The measure passed overwhelmingly, by a vote of 427-1. Even before it arrived at the Senate, Chuck Schumer called for its passage by unanimous consent. He succeeded. The bill now goes to the president for his signature.

Donald Trump caved, but I agree with those who say this is not over.

Here are 15 thoughts.

1. After all the fighting to prevent passage, we should ask why Trump is now going to authorize the release of documents in which his own name appeared so frequently that the attorney general determined that it was better not to release them at all.

2. Mark Epstein suggested an answer. He’s Jeffrey Epstein’s brother. Yesterday, he told Chris Cuomo that Trump changed his mind over the weekend, and encouraged the Republicans to vote in the affirmative, because “they’re sanitizing the files.”

3. Mark Epstein: “I’ve been recently told the reason they’re going to be releasing these things, and the reason for the flip is that they’re sanitizing these files. There’s a facility in Winchester, Virginia, where they’re scrubbing the files to take Republican names out of it. That’s what I was told by a pretty good source.”

4. Mark Epstein denied the claim that the widely circulated email in which he asked his brother to ask Steven Bannon if Vladimir Putin had photos of “Trump blowing Bubba” is evidence of kompromat. However, “Jeffrey definitely had dirt on Trump,” he told Cuomo. “You could see in the emails. Trump could deny it all he wants, but it’s pretty clear everything Trump says is a lie.”

5. Trump put intense pressure on House Republicans who are prominent voices within the maga movement. The House speaker humiliated himself many times over by refusing to swear in a congresswoman who was the last vote needed to pass the discharge petition. Over 1,000 FBI agents pored over as many as 100,000 documents in the Epstein case to redact each instance of Trump’s name. It was after that process that Pam Bondi decided against releasing them, triggering Trump’s current dilemma. If only the names of Trump’s enemies appear in the files once they’re released, no one is going to believe it.

6. The bill requires, per Bill Kristol: “that the Justice Department make public within thirty days all the unclassified records, documents, communications, and investigative materials in its possession related to any of Jeffrey Epstein’s criminal activities, civil settlements, immunity, plea agreements, and investigatory proceedings. It specifies that ‘no record shall be withheld, delayed, or redacted on the basis of embarrassment, reputational harm, or political sensitivity, including to any government official, public figure, or foreign dignitary.’”

7. Moreover: “The authors of the legislation tried to make sure any exceptions were narrowly drawn. The attorney general can only withhold or redact information from personal or medical files — the disclosure of which would constitute a clearly unwarranted invasion of personal privacy — or information that would jeopardize an active federal investigation or ongoing prosecution, ‘provided such withholding is narrowly tailored and temporary.’ The law requires that all redactions must be accompanied by a written justification in the Federal Register.”

8. But, as CNN’s Jake Tapper said after House passage: “The legislation as it stands clearly says ‘the attorney general may withhold or redact personally identifiable, information of victims or victims, personal and medical files,’ and any material that depicts injury, physical abuse, death or child sexual abuse, or jeopardize an active investigation or national security.”

9. In these loopholes are the makings of a familiar play, wrote MS Now’s Ryan Teague Beckwith. Trump will pretend to be exonerated. That’s what he did with documents showing his collusion with Russia before the 2016 election, and that’s what he’s going to do with the Epstein files. Teague Beckwith: “If the report doesn’t prove the worst thing imaginable, then it proves Trump is totally innocent … We won’t know what is in the Epstein files until they’re released. But no matter what they show, we can expect Trump will say that they exonerate him.”

10. There is one big difference, though. Back then, when the Republicans wanted Trump to get reelected in 2020, they had incentive to play along with his makebelieve. Things are very different now. Though Trump is selling the idea of running for an illegal third term, ambitious Republicans aren’t buying it. Marjorie Taylor Greene, Thomas Massie and others are competing for advantage in anticipation of the time when Trump is gone. So the GOP push for releasing the Epstein files can be seen as a fight over future party leadership. If enough Republicans believe his time is over, that might expose Trump to the outcomes of Democratic aggression: impeachment, removal, and perhaps prosecution. ABC News’ Jonathan Karl was right to say Trump seemed rattled. But he isn’t rattled by defeat. He fears what could happen if his party stands by and watches.

11. Taylor Greene and Massie speak for the party’s conspiracy wing. Supporters of that faction wanted to see members of a Jewish pedo-cabal, which is what Epstein represented, brought to justice: arrested, tried and executed in what was called “The Storm.” They were not interested in whether Trump was incriminated. They didn’t believe he was until he triggered a crisis of faith in him. He may yet be redeemed, but that won’t depend on pretending to be exonerated. Trump’s redemption will depend on how much ambitious Republicans fluent in the coded language of antisemitism are willing to play along.

12. Some liberals appear to be looking to the Epstein files the same way they used to look to the Mueller report. In doing so, I think they’re missing the big picture. Almost certainly, the Epstein files are not about something specific, like “Trump blowing Bubba.” They are about a capital-T truth. The Republicans know it, especially those who are attuned to the QAnon conspiracy theory. For them, the truth is that the Democrats are part of an evil, Jewish conspiracy against “real Americans.” All that’s needed to achieve “justice” is “proof.” Today, House Oversight Chairman James Comer said he will provide it. "If there's no Epstein list – and we want to find out if there were people that were violating the law and who they were – we'll have to construct our own."

13. The Democrats must counter with their own capital-T truth, one that’s fundamentally different from the Republicans’ in that it’s grounded in reality. Specifically, in the testimony of every single one of the survivors of Epstein’s child-sex trafficking syndicate and the elite men who sustained it. Broadly, in the daily experiences of everyone living with the legal and moral consequences of an elite cohort whose corruption is so deep and whose impunity is so vast that we’re literally paying for it.

14. “I was going to places like Johnstown, Pa., and I was going to places like Warren, Ohio. When I was there, the issue would come up about ‘the Epstein class’ — that’s what they called it. They said, well, are you on the side of the forgotten Americans or on the side of the Epstein class?” Ro Khanna told the Times.

16. The California congressman expounded on that Tuesday, saying the Epstein vote should be seen as part of the Democratic Party’s efforts to “build an enduring coalition around a vision of new economic patriotism that can unite the left and right. The elements of that are to rail against an elite governing class that has created a system that’s not working for ordinary Americans. And then to offer a concrete vision of how we’re going to prioritize the economic independence and success of those forgotten Americans, as opposed to … the Epstein class that has accumulated power and doesn’t play by the rules and has impunity at the expense of ordinary Americans.”

If nothing else comes of Tuesday’s vote, I hope it’s an awareness among liberals that conspiracists who fear an evil cabal doing evil things are mistaken only in terms of the identities of those who constitute that cabal. Otherwise, they are right. There is a real conspiracy against them – against all of us. And it's evil.