Predictable 'playbook': Trump’s next move in the Epstein scandal is clear

MSNOW writer Ryan Teague Beckwith says that President Donald Trump is about to pull from a predictable playbook when it comes to how he will wrangle his way out of the Epstein scandal.

"So far, Trump has handled the ongoing scandal surrounding the release of records related to the convicted sex trafficker with the same playbook he deployed against questions about his 2016 campaign’s contacts with the Russian government," he writes.

"The president has a predictable set of arguments," MS Now reports. "The one coming next is clear"

In both cases, he writes, Trump has "burned through" a "remarkable number" of contradictory arguments as he changes his position "in light of new revelations."

In terms of his involvement with deceased sex trafficker Epstein, Trump has brushed it off as a Democratic hoax, but, he writes, if you follow the same playbook as he used to detangle from the Russia scandal, his next move is obvious.

"Pretend he was exonerated," he writes. "In the Russia scandal that consumed so much of his first term, Trump repeatedly claimed that newly released documents exonerated him or vindicated his prior claims — even when they actually contained a lot of damaging information."

Following the release of memos that clearly showed Trump trying to pressure former FBI Director James Comey to help "lift the cloud" of Russia over his presidency, he lashed out, declaring there was "no collusion," later claiming Comey's testimony to Congress was also "'total and complete vindication.' (It was not.)"

Trump has desperately tried to avoid releasing the Epstein files, despite saying during the 2024 election that he would “have no problem with it.”

Now that the votes in the House and Senate have cleared the way to release the files, "it’s unclear what the files will say about Trump, but we know what he will say about them," he writes.

"The thousands of pages of documents from the Epstein estate publicly released by the House Oversight Committee show that Epstein mentioned Trump by name repeatedly in his emails, saying, 'of course he knew about the girls' and that the late Virginia Giuffre 'spent hours at my house with him,'" he adds.

And while the White House continues to claim the emails prove Trump "did absolutely nothing wrong," it may not matter what the files show.

"The rhetorical sleight of hand is clear: If the report doesn’t prove the worst thing imaginable, then it proves Trump is totally innocent. Trump may have welcomed Russian interference as a candidate, his campaign may have lied about it and he may have tried to block an investigation into it as president, but if he didn’t personally accept a briefcase full of cash from Vladimir Putin, well then he’s as innocent as the driven snow, the argument goes," he writes.

"Again, 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," he adds.