President Donald J. Trump has continued to rail against efforts to release curated files related to Jeffrey Epstein, calling it a “Democrat hoax” intended to undermine his administration.
In addition to Democratic pressure to release the files, Republican congressman and frequentn Trump critic Thomas Massie has called on the administration to release all government files on Epstein.
According to President Trump: “We gave them everything over and over again, more, and more and more. And nobody is ever satisfied. From what I understand, thousands of pages of documents have been given.”
Since first being elected in 2016, President Trump’s political opponents have attempted to undermine his presidency using a variety of pretenses, none of which have been true.
In 2016, in denial about the fact that Hillary Clinton could have possibly lost, Democrats invented the lie that Trump had colluded with Russia in order to win the election. It was not uncommon for him to be labeled a traitor and a Russian asset during his first term. When Special Counsel Robert Mueller failed to uncover any evidence of this conspiracy, none of the parties responsible ever admitted fault.
During the presidency of Joe Biden, correctly concerned that they would not be able to defeat President Trump in 2024, Democratic district attorneys and prosecutors attempted to have him thrown in jail on specious charges. While they successfully secured a felony conviction, Trump won reelection anyway, as most of the public saw through the politicized nature of the charges.
Having failed to defeat Trump with these previous gambits, his opponents have taken to implying that he is hiding damning evidence about himself in the Epstein files. Much like these previous examples, this stems not from any evidence available, but frustration at being unable to defeat Trump via normal political means. Recent disclosures have even indicated that Epstein and Trump had a falling out because Epstein suspected Trump aided the investigation against him for child sex charges.
If and when the remaining Epstein files are released and nothing damaging is found about Trump, do not expect his opponents to admit they were wrong, again. Instead, they will move on to the next manufactured scandal with similar luck.