Maaaaaaybe We are in the Middle of an Epstein Coverup?
MAYBE.
OK, there have been a lot of Jackals lately. Or more than I promised. Two right before the Fourth of July?! When I am usually grilling, drinking a lagerdrink, and fighting a thousand armadillos(?)? And now this one, before Friday hits?
I have some thoughts on Jeffrey Epstein.
?
I wrote about Jeffrey Epstein a few weeks ago and detailed all the connections between him and Donald Trump. I didn’t write it in that Jackal, but on Facebook (I’ll delete it soon, I swear), I posted a “conspiracy theory” I have joked about for a few years:
Elon is right that Trump is in the Epstein "files." He was close friends with Epstein in the 1980s, 1990s, and early 2000s. Trump flew on his jet multiple times and appears in Epstein's "black book." Epstein's pilot also testified that he saw Trump on the plane and one of Epstein's victims testified that he took her to meet Donald Trump at Mar-A-Lago when she was 14. Trump also knew about Epstein's abuse of minors throughout this time.
So, this is the conspiracy: Epstein is arrested by DOJ while Trump is President. He then unalives himself in a prison run by Trump's DOJ, which was then headed by Bill Barr. Barr's Dad gave Epstein his first job at a school in Manhattan, despite Epstein having no experience as a teacher.
Trump's Secretary of Labor at the time, Alex Acosta, abruptly resigns after Epstein is arrested because he gave Epstein his sweetheart deal the first time he was indicted in 2007. That sweetheart deal was negotiated by Alan Dershowitz, who defended Trump in his first impeachment trial. Dershowitz is also in Epstein's "black book" and on the flight logs.
In addition, Kash Patel and Don Bongino spent years saying Epstein didn't unalive himself, but as soon as they join the Trump Administration, they magically say the official narrative is true.
So, Epstein dies while one of his closest friends is the President, and his Attorney General, Secretary of Labor, and semi-personal lawyer all have connections to Epstein. Clearly, they were worried about Epstein talking about his connections to all of them and organized a hit!
This is such a great conspiracy that has not gotten enough traction over the years. Alternatively, my other conspiracy about Epstein is that Bill Clinton worked undercover for years and then Hillary went into Epstein's cell and strangled him herself. But the only evidence for this one is that an armadillo named Carl told me it in a dream.
See how I brought it back to the armadillos? Never doubt an artist’s intent.
But seriously: The more I have thought about this (again, facetious) theory, the more I think it might be true.
I am probably the furthest you could possibly be from a conspiracy theorist, mostly because I have had lots of interactions with both local and Federal government officials. These interactions are what led me to form my own personal alternative to Occam’s Razor: Dumas’s Razor.
If you think that is a reference to Alexandre Dumas, the French novelist, that…would actually be more than fair because his name is spelled the same way. But it’s actually a reference to DUMBASS. I always assume that the stupidest possible explanation for something is the most likely because most people are dumbasses.
This includes me. Here is a picture of my lawn right now:
If you are thinking this is Colorado’s dry climate taking its natural course, you’d be wrong. This grass was very green a few weeks ago; I am actually the person who turned the grass yellow. Why? Because I had weeds in my grass, and I used a vinegar-based weed killer to get rid of the weeds.
Do you know what vinegar ALSO kills? GRASS. I POURED VINEGAR ON MY OWN GRASS AND KILLED IT. You know what’s worse? Look at this:
There is a grass “colorant” that you can spray and turn your grass green again. So I bought it and sprayed it on my grass. BUT NOW IT JUST LOOKS LIKE YELLOW GRASS PAINTED GREEN.
I gave my grass a toupee! Why? Because I’m a dumbass!
Everyone has these moments, which is why conspiracies don’t work. To believe in something like the Flat Earth™ you have to believe that every scientist on the planet is lying, and that every person in every scientific agency is also lying. Oh, and you also have to disbelieve your own scientific findings:
On top of all of that, you have to believe that smart people (maybe the kind who write Substacks about Jeffrey Epstein), never have their dumbass moments and accidentally reveal a sinister plot to the world. Or tell a friend. Or a spouse. Or a parrot! And then all of those people/pets also keep their mouths shut.
So, with all that caveating, I will say: I actually believed the official Epstein story from the government. It made perfect sense to me that two underpaid guards neglected to do their jobs at one of the worst prisons in America (the circumstances of Epstein’s death are also way more common than people think). It also made perfect sense to me that Epstein killed himself! After all, he knew (better than anyone else) what he did and how guilty he was.
A full-blown coverup would also require a lot of lying from prosecutors, and that seems very unlikely to me. Moreover, lots of people would have to be “in” on this secret.
But Trump really, really doesn’t want to talk about Epstein. And now I’m curious.
Everything that I laid out in my conspiracy theory above is actually starting to make sense. Seriously: Kash Patel and Dan Bongino were ALL IN on releasing the Epstein “files” after they got into the Administration, and now they are all clamming up. Pam Bondi - Trump’s attorney general - said she had Epstein’s client list ON HER DESK, but now says it doesn’t exist. And despite what all of them say, none of them are acting independently. All of this is coming from Trump. If Bondi truly had Epstein’s “list”1 on her desk and wanted to release it, she would have, unless Trump told her to back off.
You can actually hear this in Trump’s responses to questions about Epstein, which have gotten worse by the day. When he was first asked about it last week, Trump asked why people couldn’t move on from talking about “this creep.” That made the MAGA crowd go nuts.
Then, in maybe the worst post ever, Trump said that the Epstein “files” were all fake, and written by “Obama, Crooked Hillary, Comey, Brennan, and the Losers and Criminals of the Biden Administration.” This one also sent MAGA into a tailspin, but it’s also the one that tinged my spidey senses the most.
Trump likened the Epstein Files to the, “Russia, Russia Hoax, 51 ‘Intelligence’ Agents” and “‘THE LAPTOP FROM HELL.’” If you are an active reader of the Jackal/tuned into reality, you’ll know that the “Russia, Russia, Russia Hoax” turned out to pretty much be true, and that the Hunter Biden operation did, in fact, have all the hallmarks of a Russian intelligence operation because…it was one.
What Trump’s post sounds like to me: He is trying to pull a “no collusion” on his presence in the Epstein Files. Here was Trump again yesterday:
Again, you can see he has a narrative he’s trying to create: The Epstein Files are fake, and they were made by Comey, Obama, and Biden. He’s trying to push his base in that direction by giving them all the red meat that they love. If he is struggling, it’s easy for him to just mention Hillary, Comey, and Obama to rile up the base.
Another thing that is irking me: I have written this about a thousand times, but Trump doesn’t actually lead the base of the GOP. He follows it more than anything. He spent years studying it by watching Fox News and other conservative media outlets, and then popped up in 2015 saying everything the base wanted to hear. He’s ahead of the media and other people mostly because he knows where the GOP base is going to go. But sometimes he gets it wrong.
The best example is the COVID vaccine. In early 2021, when Trump wanted to take credit for the vaccine, he tried to promote it. He even said to his supporters, “Don’t let them [Democrats] take this from you.” It was his accomplishment and he wanted credit for it.
He pushed hard for it, but the base didn’t budge. When the pushback inevitably came, he immediately backed off and never brought it up again. With the Epstein stuff, he isn’t just refusing to back down; he’s doubling down.
There is this fascinating thing that happens with Trump, where people ascribe certain things to him that simply aren’t true. After the election in 2024, I literally heard Trump voters say he wouldn’t actually put the tariffs in place. “But he campaigned on them!” The response was, “Yeah, but he knows they’re a bad idea.”
You’re also seeing a lot of this play out with Trump losing the “Manosphere” and a lot of those guys saying, “I didn’t vote for this,” when it comes to immigration raids at Home Depot. Except, they did! Trump explicitly campaigned on “Mass Deportation.”
It’s the same story with Epstein: During the campaign, lots of people said that under Trump, we’d finally see a release of the Epstein files. Except when reporters asked him about it during the campaign, Trump said no! In an interview with Fox News, Trump was asked about declassifying the Epstein Files and here’s how it went:
I love how Trump initially says yes, and then says, “You know what, when it comes to Epstein…no.”
Oh, and for fun, here is how this interview played out on the Fox News broadcast:
Well, that’s a fun little edit. Remember this the next time someone tries to tell you MSNBC or CNN is biased.
The other part of this that I can’t get out of my head is Ghislaine Maxwell. We seem to have forgotten, but she is currently in jail, exhausting her appeals.2
Lots of people have questions about how Epstein acquired so much money in the 1980s, and while there is still a ton of mystery there, it is important to note that Maxwell was Epstein’s access to the elites. Her father - Robert Maxwell - was incredibly wealthy and well-connected; at one point, he was the owner of the New York Daily News.
He was also a fraudster, and his death is similarly prone to conspiracy theories, just like Epstein’s. But Epstein couldn’t have built his empire without Ghislaine. She was also a monster, and would coax young girls into meeting Epstein. If an older guy comes up to a young teenager asking if she needs help, a lot of girls are going to run away. But if a sophisticated and posh woman with a British accent approaches them, that’s an easier sell. Maxwell is evil and is right where she belongs.
When you look at pictures of Epstein and Trump hanging out (and there are a lot), Ghisaline isn’t far away:
So, this is my question: After Maxwell was indicted, why did Trump say that he “wished her well?” That’s what he said at a press conference after a reporter asked him about her indictment. It was such a weird moment that it came up in another interview, and Trump doubled down:
Maxwell isn’t a passive player here. She abused children just like Epstein did. One of their victims - Virginia Giuffre3 - said that it was Maxwell who approached her when she turned 19 and asked her to consider being a surrogate for the two of them to have a child. You see, Epstein and Maxwell were losing interest in Giuffre because she was no longer a minor (Maxwell’s words), so they proposed that she give them a child. Sick and evil.
I just have so many questions about Maxwell, Epstein, and MAGA:
Is Michael Wolff telling the truth that Trump was considering a pardon for Maxwell after his first term?
Is it true that Maxwell wants to give up information in turn for a lighter sentence?
Who introduced Trump and Melania?
Why did reporters say in 2018 that you were only on Epstein’s plane if you were looking for trafficked girls or being trafficked yourself?
Will MAGA abandon Trump over this?
The last question is probably on everyone’s mind, and I think the very obvious answer is no. Eventually, they will move on or they will buy one of Trump’s explanations.4 A lot of the Epstein stuff is palpable in MAGA because of the big influence of QAnon, but even that has faded as its promises have collapsed.
Eventually, they will turn back to Trump. But this is a story Democrats should hammer day in and day out (and should have been during the election!).
I do have one final question about Ghislaine that bugs me. In his book, Ticking Clock: Behind the Scenes at 60 Minutes, show producer Ira Rosen has a crazy little story.
He interviewed Maxwell in early 2016 and specifically asked her about Epstein and Trump. Rosen said, “"I want the tapes. I know he [Epstein] was videotaping everyone and I want the tapes of Trump with the girls.”
Maxwell’s response? “I don’t know where they are.”
If they didn’t exist, why wouldn’t she just say so?
See you Friday.
I will be honest: I still don’t think there is a list, because that would be dumb. Epstein did keep a “list” of contacts, and Trump is in it (with 14 entries), but that’s hardly an indictment of anyone; Epstein knew lots of famous people. Many of his victims also say they weren’t aware of any lists that he kept.
I don’t want to do a deep dive on it right now, but SCOTUS is eventually going to hear an appeal from Maxwell regarding her prosecution and her argument is…not terrible. I’ll save it for another Jackal.
Giuffre is an Epstein victim whose story truly breaks my heart. She died earlier this year in an apparent suicide.
They are already latching onto the idea that Epstein was in intelligence, and the CIA/FBI/NSA/Mossad were running a blackmail operation. There is no truth to this.
Really good Dave!