President Donald Trump took to Truth Social on Saturday to support Attorney General Pam Bondi while chastising his “so-called ‘friends’” in MAGA for caring about Jeffrey Epstein, and making demands for her to release files related to Epstein, “a guy who never dies,” he wrote. The definitely dead mogul and convicted sex offender died while in prison in 2019.
“They’re all going after Attorney General Pam Bondi, who is doing a FANTASTIC JOB! We’re on one Team, MAGA, and I don’t like what’s happening. We have a PERFECT Administration, THE TALK OF THE WORLD, and ‘selfish people’ are trying to hurt it, all over a guy who never dies, Jeffrey Epstein,” Trump wrote on Saturday, July 12 in a lengthy screed on Truth Social.
On Sunday, the Department of Justice released in a memo alleging that Epstein had killed himself, that his “client list” does not exist, and that the administration was pretty much closing the case, which has sparked a lot of conspiracy theories around his 2019 death in prison and the alleged client list. The memo drop was an about-face from what Trump promised before the election, when he said his administration would release the so-called Epstein files.
In February, Bondi told Fox News that Epstein’s client list was “sitting on my desk right now to review. That’s been a directive by President Trump. I’m reviewing that.” A week later, the Justice Department released a “first phase” of Epstein files, and officials brought right-wing influencers to the White House to collect the report in person, an episode that embarrassed the administration when the files contained no new information. In March, she said “everything’s going to come out to the public,” and accused the Biden administration of “sitting” on the documents.
Predictably, MAGA heard the siren call of a conspiracy case seemingly closed without resolve and got big mad. Many prominent right-wingers were outraged and some even called on Bondi to be fired, and it’s been an unshakable issue within the Trump administration.
On Saturday, Trump, who definitely seems to care himself about the Epstein files that he claims “nobody cares” about, had his own spin on the Epstein files, baselessly claiming they were written by a slew of Democrats and political adversaries and critics, including former President Obama, former Secretary of State Hillary Clinton, and former FBI Director James Comey, whom Trump fired during his first term.
“For years, it’s Epstein, over and over again. Why are we giving publicity to Files written by Obama, Crooked Hillary, Comey, Brennan, and the Losers and Criminals of the Biden Administration, who conned the World with the Russia, Russia, Russia Hoax, 51 ‘Intelligence’ Agents, ‘THE LAPTOP FROM HELL,’ and more?” Trump claimed.
“They created the Epstein Files, just like they created the FAKE Hillary Clinton/Christopher Steele Dossier that they used on me, and now my so-called ‘friends’ are playing right into their hands,” he continued. “Why didn’t these Radical Left Lunatics release the Epstein Files? If there was ANYTHING in there that could have hurt the MAGA Movement, why didn’t they use it? They haven’t even given up on the John F. Kennedy or Martin Luther King, Jr. Files.”
The much-sensationalized and mostly unsubstantiated Steele dossier, compiled by British spy Christopher Steele, alleged connections between Trump’s 2016 campaign and Russia during his bid against Clinton.
Trump then beckoned his base in an all-caps “LET PAM BONDI DO HER JOB — SHE’S GREAT!” while also claiming the left is “imploding.” He added that current FBI Director Kash Patel should focus on “investigating Voter Fraud, Political Corruption, ActBlue, The Rigged and Stolen Election of 2020, and arresting Thugs and Criminals,” all favorite issues of his base. He concluded by writing, “Let’s not waste Time and Energy on Jeffrey Epstein, somebody that nobody cares about.”
For days, several Trump administration officials and senior aides have been privately communicating with MAGA influencers and other prominent Epstein files obsessives who they’ve known for years, trying — largely in vain — to convince them to lay off the Epstein issue, post-memo release, according to sources with direct knowledge of the matter.
Trump’s social media post on Saturday is unlikely to quell any of this intra-MAGA unrest over his administration’s alleged lack of transparency on this issue.
One Trump administration official tells Rolling Stone on Saturday evening: “He is making it very hard for some of his biggest supporters to not think that maybe he really is in the Epstein files.”
Another longtime Trump associate simply says: “awful damage control instincts.”
