OPINION:
“Are you still talking about Jeffrey Epstein?” President Trump asked, half incredulous, half annoyed, in response to a reporter’s question during a White House Cabinet meeting on Tuesday. “This guy’s been talked about for years. We have Texas, we have this, we have all of the things … and are people still talking about this guy, this creep? That is unbelievable.”
As his visceral response betrayed, Mr. Trump hates the endless saga of Epstein, a convicted pedophile he used to pal around with before the two had a falling out. You’ve seen the pictures: the two men grinning broadly, arms wrapped around their women as they partied at Mar-a-Lago.
But Mr. Trump has only his handpicked attorney general, Pam Bondi, to blame for keeping the story alive, over and over. Epstein supposedly killed himself in 2019 (read the reports; it sure doesn’t seem plausible), but six years later there are more questions than answers about the sex fiend.
Ms. Bondi has been at the center of this storm, mainly because of her cryptic declaration on Fox News earlier this year that she had a “client list” sitting on her desk. Then the Justice Department came out Sunday evening and said, Poof. There is no client list and Epstein killed himself.
So, circling the wagons, the White House and the DOJ quickly came up with a not-so-plausible excuse, one that Ms. Bondi repeated — as if reading from cue cards — while seated right next to Mr. Trump in the Cabinet meeting on Tuesday.
In February, “I did an interview on Fox, and it’s been getting a lot of attention because … I was asked a question about the client list, and my response was, ‘It’s sitting on my desk to be reviewed,’ meaning the file,” Ms. Bondi said. “That’s what I meant by that.”
But here’s the actual exchange. Fox host John Roberts said to the attorney general, “DOJ may be releasing the list of Jeffrey Epstein’s clients. Will that really happen?” Ms. Bondi: “It’s sitting on my desk right now to review. That’s been a directive by President Trump.”
Then there’s the matter of the missing tapes. Ms. Bondi stoked conspiracy flames in April when she claimed that the FBI was reviewing “tens of thousands of videos” of Epstein “with children or child porn.”
Well, that’s salacious. What happened with that? Oh, and guess what? Now they’re just videos that Epstein “downloaded” — and Ms. Bondi says they just can’t release those, either. “Also, to the tens of thousands of videos, they turned out to be child porn downloaded by that disgusting Jeffrey Epstein,” she said in the Cabinet meeting. “Child porn is what they were. Never going to be released, never going to see the light of day.”
Now, adding intrigue to this saga, is the infamous “missing minute” of jail cell footage from the night Epstein supposedly committed suicide. The DOJ released a 10-minute closed-circuit video from outside Epstein’s jail cell. But there’s a minute missing. While the DOJ insists the omission is nothing more than a bureaucratic video-loop reset, internet conspiracy theorists have let their imaginations run wild.
Ms. Bondi sought to explain that away, too. “The video was not conclusive, but the evidence prior to it was, showing he committed suicide. What was on that — there was a minute that was off the counter — and what we learned from the Bureau of Prisons was … every night, they redo that video,” she stammered. “So, every night the video is reset, and every night should have the same minute missing. So we’re looking for that video to release that as well.”
I bet they are. How much do you want to bet they come up with 100 examples in no time?
Look, nobody knows what happened to Epstein, whether he killed himself or not. And nobody knows if there ever was a “little black book” with names of clients who used his disgusting services (think Prince Andrew’s cellie was in there?)
But the DOJ’s memo released Sunday seeking to end all debate said that investigators had found 300 gigabytes of data in “locked cabinets, desks, closets”; identified more than 1,000 victims, many underage, who “each suffered unique trauma”; and then declared that “there was also no credible evidence found that Epstein blackmailed prominent individuals as part of his actions.” How’d they reach that conclusion? Show your work, people!
The memo also reads, “We did not uncover evidence that could predicate an investigation against uncharged third parties,” suggesting that the matter is now closed.
As the Church Lady used to say on “Saturday Night Live,” “Well, isn’t THAT convenient?”
• Joseph Curl covered the White House and politics for a decade for The Washington Times. He can be reached at josephcurl@gmail.com and on Twitter @josephcurl.
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