MAGA's Epstein Files Fight Shows the Long Tail of QAnon

Like sex trafficking panic more broadly, the Epstein files are a useful political tool—as long as they remain hidden.

Remember QAnon? The conspiracy theory, popular among President Donald Trump's supporters for years, held that a furtive network of satanic pedophiles had infiltrated political institutions, the press, and other echelons of power and influence. According to Q lore, Trump was working to expose and punish these cretins—who included Hillary Clinton and other prominent Democrats—and to end the child suffering, sex trafficking, and hormone harvesting that these horrible globalists were engaging in.

QAnon—itself preceded by the perhaps even more zany Pizzagate conspiracy—was too out there for mainstream Republicans to explicitly endorse. But neither would they explicitly condemn the theory or its believers, and they often seemed happy to play along with the narrative, touting Trump's alleged crackdown on child sex trafficking.

Republicans took a lot of flak for this, but of course, Democrats had been stoking sex trafficking panic for their own gain, too. QAnon didn't start in a vacuum; it followed two decades of mainstream media and politicians, both left and right, using the flimsiest evidence and most distorted data to falsely claim that America was in the midst of a sex trafficking epidemic.

And then along came Jeffrey Epstein.

Epstein Helped Bring the Promise of QAnon to Life 

The finance mogul's well-documented crimes involving teenage girls, and his roster of rich and powerful friends, could be read by motivated audiences as backing up QAnon claims. Sure, there were no satanists or adrenochrome harvesting—or were there? Epstein's seemingly lenient treatment during a mid-aughts prosecution in Florida, and his subsequent suicide in a federal jail cell in 2019, led to a lot of speculation that the "deep state" was working to cover things up.

Here was a sex-trafficking conspiracy theory that the mainstream right could embrace. After all, no one would dispute that Epstein had engaged in sleazy, abusive behavior with girls and young women, or that he had flown both his victims and some powerful people to his private island. It wasn't that much of a stretch to suggest that Epstein's "client list" was being covered up, nor too far-fetched to suggest that the reason for this cover-up had to do with protecting prominent Democrats and their supporters. (I'm not saying I believe either assertion, just that they aren't beyond belief in the way that Clinton torturing children in the basement of a D.C. pizza joint should be).

Folks in Trump's orbit began to actively encourage the idea that Epstein's client list was being deliberately withheld by Democrats with something to hide.

And, on the campaign trail, Trump suggested that he would declassify the Epstein files if elected president.

Then, back in February, the Trump administration made a big show of giving influencers binders supposedly containing the so-called Epstein files. These binders turned out to be full of information already available.

Nothing To See Here? 

But last week, the FBI released a memo saying there was nothing left in the Epstein files that was worth releasing. There was "no incriminating 'client list' and "no credible evidence found that Epstein blackmailed" anyone. "No further disclosure would be appropriate or warranted," it said.

"Teams of agents, analysts, attorneys, and privacy and civil liberties experts combed through the digital and documentary evidence with the aim of providing as much information as possible to the public while simultaneously protecting victims," stated the memo. "Much of the material is subject to court-ordered sealing. Only a fraction of this material would have been aired publicly had Epstein gone to trial, as the seal served only to protect victims and did not expose any additional third-parties to allegations of illegal wrongdoing. Through this review, we found no basis to revisit the disclosure of those materials and will not permit the release of child pornography."

Now, Trump is telling people to forget about Jeffrey Epstein entirely. The Epstein files were created by the same Democrats who "created the FAKE Hillary Clinton/Christopher Steele Dossier that they used on me," Trump posted to Truth Social last Saturday. "Let's…not waste Time and Energy on Jeffrey Epstein, somebody that nobody cares about."

"I don't understand why the Jeffrey Epstein case would be of interest to anybody," Trump told reporters yesterday. "It's pretty boring stuff—it's sordid, but it's boring, and I don't understand why it keeps going. I think only pretty bad people, including fake news, want to keep something like that going."

It is all a bit weird—even to someone like me, who finds the idea that Epstein kept some sort of master "client list" to be silly.

The Real Reason Republicans Have Changed Their Tune About Epstein

I don't believe there is such a smoking-gun list in possession of federal agents, and I remain skeptical that there's anything left hidden in any Epstein files that would be a bombshell. But even I must admit, the whole "release the files" business seems slightly less preposterous now that Trump and his lackeys seem desperate to draw attention away from them.

Then again, if there was really something bad for Trump or his allies in the files, why wouldn't the Justice Department simply omit that part? Surely, the Trump administration could just redact or withhold whatever it didn't want out there (maybe with legal justification or maybe not; the lack of legal means hasn't seemed to bother this administration elsewhere) and release the rest.

Besides, if there was something particularly damning about Trump in the files, it surely wouldn't have been kept secret for so long. After all, a lot of Epstein information found its way to the public before being officially released.

Maybe the simplest answer really is the most likely one: There isn't anything left that's worth releasing. And Trump is trying to encourage his supporters to forget about all this because he's got to suppress expectations after years of building them up.

The theoretical files were useful as a tool to raise suspicion about Trump's opponents. But the actual files are not useful to Republicans—and, in fact, could be a liability or an embarrassment—in that they don't actually prove anything nefarious about any Democrats.

Sex Trafficking Rhetoric (but Not Reality) Makes a Useful Political Tool

Whatever is actually going on, the response within the MAGA world is entirely predictable. Of course, some especially sycophantic types are telling everyone to trust Trump and let it go. And, of course, some people who've been fed a lot of Epstein file fantasies for years—promised, in essence, that this was what QAnon conspiracy theorists had been waiting for—are at the very least miffed, if not downright suspicious, about the way this is playing out.

As someone who can frequently be found trying to tamp down sex trafficking hysteria, I might also seem like someone who would be especially critical of QAnon believers and of their watered-down counterparts who are convinced that the Epstein files will offer some sort of astounding and damning new revelations. But I'm not. Because it's not really their fault. They have been fed by decades of conspiracy theories—from the satanic panic of the 1980s to the sex trafficking rhetoric of the '00s through today—from the most establishment politicians (Democrat and Republican) and a lot of mainstream media.

I can't say I hate watching Trump reap what he's been sowing here. But I also can't pretend that Trump—or Republicans—have been alone in sowing it.

The specter of sex trafficking has been a useful tool for both Republicans and Democrats, giving them cover to do all sorts of things otherwise on their agenda: stigmatize and further crack down on prostitution, increase surveillance of immigrants, gain more control over online speech, and so on.

"Chasing down the one last secret of the Epstein case" is likely "missing the forest for the trees," as my colleague Matthew Petti wrote in February. "The information that's already out there about the powerful figures and institutions who enabled Epstein is damning enough in itself."

The actual information out there doesn't make for a neatly partisan cudgel, however.

As a political tool, the Epstein files are much more useful if they remain hidden.

That's why we had Republicans clamoring for their release when Joe Biden was president but now voting against their release. And Democrats who didn't seem that keen on it are voting to release the files and calling for their exposure now that the Trump administration is saying to forget about them.

Like with QAnon, and with the broader political rhetoric around sex trafficking, the Epstein files are likely only useful as political theater when the truth remains obscured—not because that truth is especially sinister and damning, but because it is not. There is plenty to vociferously condemn with Epstein, of course. But the idea that the Epstein files can bring down Democrats, or bring down Trump, seems like only partisan wish casting.

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Washington, D.C. | 2018 (ENB/Reason)