3 ways Trump might try to defuse the Epstein mess
Add Axios as your preferred source to
see more of our stories on Google.
President Trump at the FIF Club World Cup match Sunday in East Rutherford, N.J. Photo: Angela Weiss/AFP via Getty Images)
President Trump isn't ready to course-correct over how his administration has handled the Jeffrey Epstein evidence.
- But officials and advisers are considering at least three ways Trump could try to defuse an issue that, for the first time, has put him crosswise with his online MAGA base.
Why it matters: Everyone in the administration realizes this is a disaster — except perhaps Trump, who asserted in a rambling Truth Social post over the weekend that Epstein is "somebody that nobody cares about." That got him "ratioed" on his own platform, a first.
Here are three possible routes the White House is considering to try to mitigate the damage, based on conversations with administration officials and top outside advisers:
- Appoint a special counsel or investigative team to review the Epstein case top to bottom, and produce a report.
- Remove redactions to already released documents related to the late sex offender, perhaps at the direction of the special counsel or investigative team.
- Petition courts that have sealed Epstein-related records to unseal them in cases in which the administration can't.
The big picture: These are ideas floating in MAGA's ether, but there's no unanimity on how to proceed. There's general agreement not to proceed until Trump says so. And right now, his Truth Social post is the policy: No more Epstein stuff.
- "The president said to put this behind us, so we're putting this behind us," a top adviser said. "If he changes, then the policy changes. Period."
- "I love POTUS, but I think he's delusional about how awful this looks," said an adviser who doesn't work in the administration.
- "When he gets the message, the delusion will change. But maybe he can ride this out. Maybe he's right."
Reality check: There's a sense of fatalism that surrounds Trump's team over Epstein. Before the 2024 election, Trump and advisers such as Dan Bongino, Kash Patel, Pam Bondi and JD Vance, to varying degrees, helped nurture conspiracy theories about hidden documents and a secret Epstein "client list."
- Now it's become unshakable MAGA dogma, which endures despite the administration's finding that Epstein didn't have a client list and that he committed suicide.
- "Can we really change minds and, if we try and fail, what's the headline?" said a White House official.
Behind the scenes: Trump was steamed over the weekend at Bongino, now the FBI's deputy director, for getting in a bitter squabble in the White House with Attorney General Bondi over the handling of the Epstein files. That spilled into the open on Friday.
- Not only did Bongino take Friday off and threaten to quit, some believed Patel, the FBI director, might leave with him. So Trump "had a frank conversation" with Patel, a source familiar with the discussion said.
- Vice President Vance spoke repeatedly to Patel and Bongino to try to contain the fallout, two sources said. Patel then issued a statement on X Saturday that he was staying, and administration officials expect Bongino to return to work, at least for a short time.
- Trump told reporters Sunday he had spoken earlier to Bongino and called him "a very good guy."
- "Dan has made it clear he can't stand Pam. And Pam has made it clear that she can't stand Dan. So here we are," said one administration official familiar with the dynamics.
- "It's DOJ vs. FBI right now," the official said.
The intrigue: The administration's handling of the Epstein case has increased speculation that Trump has something to hide because he was friends with Epstein in the 1990s and early 2000s.
- "We have no evidence he was involved with Epstein's operation. But the irony is, he's now a part of the story because he's being accused of covering it up," Miami Herald journalist Julie Brown, whose reporting helped bring Epstein to justice, told the "Because Miami" podcast Friday.
- Indeed, the surveillance video the Justice Department released from the New York City prison where Epstein died in 2019 — an attempt to show skeptics he committed suicide and wasn't murdered — didn't actually depict the outside of his jail cell, Brown said.
- And Wired.com determined the so-called "raw" video footage was likely modified.
- The cameras that were supposed to be trained on Epstein's cell door didn't record on the day he died. And Epstein's cellmate (who died of COVID two years later) had been transferred out the day before the sexual predator's death.
Mike Davis, an outside Trump legal adviser with the conservative Article III Project, took to X on Sunday to try to tamp down talk about releasing more information.
- "The file is largely unreleasable, for many reasons," Davis wrote, noting that grand jury materials can't be made public, and that disclosing more information could hurt victims of Epstein's abuse as well as others who did no wrong.
- ""Unsubstantiated, even double- or triple-hearsay, bogus claims ... would permanently destroy the reputation of innocent people if released."
