The internet has been abuzz this summer with rumor and speculation about the place of Donald Trump in the Jeffrey Epstein files and the extended universe of lascivious corruption and perversion they represent. Indeed, the current hullaballoo is an extension of the sturm und drang that began with the announcement in March that the rumored “client list” belonging to notorious sex trafficker would finally be published. For those deeply embedded in the lore of MAGA, this list would be the authentic proof of an unholy nexus between elite politicians (most of whom are Democrats) and their globalist co-conspirators engaging in vile acts of sexual debauchery that speak to their evil nature and the need for them to be relentless purged from politics and society. While the case of Jeffrey Epstein and his consort Ghislaine Maxwell is an undeniably tawdry tale of wealthy and powerful individuals engaging in the sexual exploitation of underage girls, the speculation of who was involved in this exploitation always outpaced the details of the case itself. And while there is no doubt powerful people in the highest levels of the global elites appear in the released files from the Epstein criminal cases, including such famous names as Bill Clinton, Prince Andrew, Kevin Spacey, and Stephen Hawking, there was always a more fantasy-based extended list that included just about every famous “liberal” in the American political scene. Thus the release of these files was one of the key demands of the larger MAGA political movement—a demand that brought together all branches of the movement from the most zealous QAnon conspiracy theorists to the legions of podcasters that ran free public relations for the Trump campaign in the run up to the 2024 election to the rank-and-file red hat wearing MAGA foot soldiers attending Trump rallies and watching Fox News. In short, the Epstein files and media buzz around it was prime example of how the right wing in American politics was using the spectacle as a means to accumulate power, gain advantage over political adversaries and in 2024, take effective control of the political and cultural apparatus of the US.

In the midst of all this gleeful speculation of which liberal elites were mentioned in the files and who among the detested Hollywood illuminati would be exposed, one inconvenient fact remained–Donald Trump–the messiah in the MAGA universe–was very likely a frequent and prominent name in the files. As revealed by countless photos of him and Epstein together in the 1990s as well as Trump’s name being mentioned several times in the flight logs of Epstein’s notorious private jet that was used to fly VIPs and trafficked girls to the various pleasure palaces Epstein established around the US and Caribbean, Trump and Epstein were close associates and friends for an extended period of time in the 1990s and early 2000s.[1] This association was ignored or obscured in favor of focusing on the more damning evidence of Epstein’s association with other prominent politicians and entertainers mentioned above along with the emergence of the QAnon conspiracy theory that used the existence of the sex trafficking ring as evidence of a more sinister global network of global elites who engaged in depraved sexual practices on minors as a means to ritualize their admission into and maintain their status within this network  of all-powerful puppet masters. For an array of digital media warriors using the sensationalist nature of the spectacle to build-up their clout as political influencers and information assassins against the liberal status quo (such as podcasters Dan Bongino and Kash Patel), the Epstein files were a kind of magical talisman that could seek out and destroy the corruption of Washington DC while protecting MAGAs righteous soldiers from the deep states retribution. When Donald Trump won the presidency in November of 2024, the strategy seemed to have succeeded and many of the digital warriors that had used the Epstein files in their battles against the deep state during the Biden Administration could look forward to being rewarded and recruited for the obligatory purge of sex fiends from the halls of power (both Patel and Bongino were put in charge of directing the FBI, ostensibly to use the power of that agency to destroy the deep state perverts they had warned would be empowered if Trump lost the election). 

Yet something happened on the way to the land of vengeful justice. The first sign of trouble was in March, when Pam Bondi, Trump’s Attorney General, appeared to fulfill the administration’s promise of releasing the Epstein files where the identities of the all the deviant elites would finally be revealed. As a way of feeding the spectacle that had grown around this issue, several prominent MAGA influencers with shows, podcasts and video clip accounts scattered around the MAGA media network were invited to White House where the Epstein files would be ceremonially “handed over” to them so they could then sift through them and report their contents to their loyal followers before echoing out into the larger media universe. The actual day of the hand-over was covered with great pomp by the right-wing and MAGA media apparatus as the “chosen few” who were selected to be the first recipients of these hallowed documents gleefully clutched them in their hands and shook them triumphantly above their heads as they left their meeting with Bondi and other members of Trump’s staff. It is not clear if this publicity stunt was the work of Trump himself or of his staff, but whoever approved it, it proved to be a major mistake. It quickly became apparent to the celebrity MAGA media personalities to whom the files were released (the first of many tranches of documents that were promised) that they held no new information that was not already publicly released. This, combined with heavy redactions in many of the documents, led to a substantial expression disappointment and anger on the part of many members of the MAGA movement who were expecting to see client lists and narratives of depravity connected to those clients. In the absence of these types of bombshells, many Trump supporters began to express for the first time genuine doubts about Trump as the Messiah of MAGA and whether the evils of the deep state would ever be defeated. Despite this disappointment however, MAGA moved on as Trump was able to redirect the flow of the spectacle in a direction away from Epstein. Then came Elon.

As discussed in the last post, Trump’s success at winning the 2024 election came in no small part with the assistance of Elon Musk. Both Trump and Musk were veterans of spectacular combat and were each able to wield their knowledge of this type of conflict and leverage their control and influence of its key platforms to gain success against the more hapless campaign of Kamala Harris. In relying on the spectacle for their triumph, however, they lost sight of the fact that the spectacle is not something that can be fully controlled, and that just because your instrumental goals for which you tapped into the spectacle in the first place have been accomplished, the spectacle does not allow for any “standing down” once the campaign ends. Both Trump and Musk attempted to continue to feed the spectacle with continuous press conferences that included the signing of executive orders, the liquidation of federal bureaucratic agencies like USAID, the ramping up of a program for mass deportation of migrants and a seemingly endless procession of press conferences, gaggles and choregraphed cabinet meetings to give Trump and Musk the appearance of being hard at work running the country and “making America great again.” All of this was done with great skill in the kayfabe tradition that has become the hallmark of the strategy of the Trump Administration. Yet it was only a matter of time when the ceaseless demand for scandal, speculation, innuendo and intrigue that sustains the spectacle would turn against Trump and the new regime. This moment came when Trump and Musk had their great falling out at the beginning of June when Trump began to whip up support for his “Big Beautiful Bill” budget package. This bill contained countless controversial items, but what disgusted Musk about the bill was its considerable extension of US debt to the tune of 3.4 trillion dollars.[2] Musk wrote out several tweets criticizing these proposals, along with also expressing his disdain that several government subsidy programs that benefitted Musk pertaining to solar power generation and electric cars would be eliminated. Trump took the criticisms as a sign of ingratitude and more or less cut Musk off from his unofficial perch within the White House.[3] Now engaged in a full-fledged flame war unfolding across broadcast and social media, Musk dropped his “big bomb:” the claim that the reason the Epstein files were not released was because Trump’s name was in them.[4] This was the moment that Trump was no longer able to influence the direction of the spectacle and would now be carried away by it.   

The prosecutors of Epstein and Maxwell have said that just because a name appears somewhere in the case files doesn’t mean the person is suspected of having engaged in illegal activity. As a rich and powerful financier who often worked in numerous philanthropic initiatives, Epstein was likely to rub elbows with numerous celebrities, athletes and political power brokers around the country. Yet such pedestrian observations tend not to go over well in the society of the spectacle where stories involving the sex lives of the rich and famous are prime fodder for celebrity gossip and the spinning of conspiracy theories. This is especially true for the supporters and attendants of Donald Trump, who have used the existence of the Epstein Files to highlight the corruption of American elites that Trump’s presidency would exterminate. Upon the revelation by Musk, the importance of files has grown exponentially as there now exists the possibility of a once-in-a-geological-age Ur-scandal that could rip apart the tectonic plates of US politics. It is now plausible that the sitting president of the United States—the proverbial “leader of the free world”—is involved in some way, as an observer, as a client, or perhaps as a ringleader himself, in underage sex trafficking. The gravity of this scandal creates a figurative supermassive black hole of innuendo and speculation; a news TON 618 that allows no other form of information to escape and disintegrates at the atomic level any alternative story that one might try to fly in its face. Even Trump, a proven expert at influencing and redirecting the vectors of the spectacle, may be helpless in the face of the gravitational pull of what the spectacle has become with these allegations and the ostensible documents that could prove the worst of the allegations as true. Indeed, the actions of Trump for most of the month of July has been to try to throw out counter-narratives and stories to distract from the suffocating focus on the files and what they contain—whether trying to revive long-disproven claims about Obama manipulating intelligence in 2016 to possibly giving Epstein’s consort Ghislane Maxwell relief from her long prison sentence in exchange for exonerating testimony—each of these items quickly gets sucked in the black hole of the larger story of the contents of the actual Epstein files.[5]

The question now is whether Trump can tame the spectacle one more time to escape political destruction? Is there a media maneuver that Trump can pull that, while not letting him escape the gravitational pull of the spectacle of the Epstein files, at least allows him to circle around the event horizon long enough to serve out his term and avoid facing any kind of justice for any crimes he may or may not have committed. There is also the question of the hordes of MAGA loyalists and hosts of QAnon conspiracy theorists who must face the fact that the ugly face of the deep state may actually be the person who was supposed to deliver them from it. Finally, amid the scandal are the hundreds of victims of Epstein and Maxwell. While Trump, assuming he is connected in some way with Epstein and Maxwell, manages to avoid any accountability, it will be the justice they are entitled to that will be disintegrated into the maw of the black hole of the scandal.   

[1] https://www.newsweek.com/donald-trump-flights-jeffrey-epstein-jet-lolita-express-1857109

[2] https://www.cbo.gov/publication/61486

[3] https://www.cnn.com/business/timeline-elon-musk-trump-x-dg

[4] https://www.france24.com/en/americas/20250606-musk-accuses-trump-of-being-named-in-epstein-files-as-public-rowworsens?utm_slink=go.france24.com%2FHV4&utm_term=FRANCE24.English&utm_campaign=facebook&utm_source=nonli&utm_medium=social

[5] https://www.theguardian.com/us-news/2025/jul/25/donald-trump-epstein-distraction