First, he said the late sex-trafficking pervert Jeffrey Epstein was “terrific.” Then he “wasn’t a fan of his.”
First, he wanted a “full investigation.” Then it was nothing more than a “hoax” and a “scam.”
Donald Trump’s 180-degree turn on Epstein over the years has been a saga of self-preservation, useful distraction, and false appeasement as the base he conditioned to Demand Answers has refused to let it go.
Now, with the government reopened and Congress back to work, the rubber finally meets the road.
A group of Republican House members, led by Rep. Thomas Massie, is following through with promises to vote to bring legislation to the floor that would compel the Justice Department to release all of its Epstein files, which Attorney General Pam Bondi has thus far refused to do — presumably at the request of Trump himself.
Massie’s got some help, and from some of Trump’s most loyal adherents. Reps. Lauren Boebert, Nancy Mace and Marjorie Taylor Greene, have all said they’ll vote to release. And they’re not hiding from their decisions.
“I honestly believe it’s not only the right thing to do for the victims but it’s also the right thing to do for the country,” Greene said on Wednesday. “Americans deserve transparency.”
Said Mace: “I stand with all survivors….The Epstein vote will be for you too.”
The vote takes place next week, but it’s not a fait accompli that we’ll all finally get to see whatever’s in those files — from a potentially damning client list to details about his prison suicide. After the House votes, it will need the Senate to vote to release, and then the president — the one who’s now calling the investigation a hoax — would have to sign it into law.
Massie has some very important advice and strong words for Republicans who are contemplating voting Trump’s way to keep the files suppressed.
“I would remind my colleagues that this vote is gonna be on your record for longer than Trump is gonna be president. And what are you gonna do in 2028 and 2030 when you’re in a debate either with a Republican or a Democrat and they say, ‘How can we trust you? You covered up for a pedophile back in 2025.’ ”
Republicans are going to have to answer for countless acts of cowardice, from acquitting Trump of impeachable offenses to defending Jan. 6. History, I have faith, will judge them correctly and harshly.
But this may be the most perilous of all. Who wants to spend the rest of their careers having to explain why they fought so hard to protect a convicted pedophile and all of his accomplices just because their favorite president — a criminal himself — may have been implicated in the process?
Massie thinks plenty of others will see the stakes in a similar way. According to Politico, “Senior Republicans privately believe dozens of Republicans will vote for it, possibly 100 or more.”
The latest batch of Epstein emails, unexpectedly released by House Democrats and Republicans this week, will undoubtedly give them an extra push if they need one. In them, Epstein boasts that he knew how “dirty Donald” was, and describes one woman as his “20-year-old girlfriend in 93, that after two years i gave to donald.” He also says Trump “spent hours at my house” with someone simply referred to in the redacted documents as “Victim,” and that “Of course [Trump] knew about the girls.”
Trump has responded predictably, with projection and veiled threats.
“The Democrats are trying to bring up the Jeffrey Epstein Hoax again because they’ll do anything at all to deflect on how badly they’ve done on the Shutdown, and so many other subjects. Only a very bad, or stupid, Republican would fall into that trap,” he wrote on Truth Social.
He’s also been calling Republican lawmakers like Boebert to try to pressure them not to vote to release.
If it were just a meaningless hoax, Trump wouldn’t care if the files were released. He wouldn’t have spent years stoking dark conspiracy theories about the files, only to suddenly conclude there was nothing in them. He wouldn’t have switched from backing a “full investigation” to impeding one. He wouldn’t have had Epstein’s convicted accomplice Ghislaine Maxwell moved to a lower-security prison after “testifying” to one of Trump’s favorite lawyers that Trump did nothing wrong. He wouldn’t need to call lawmakers to change their votes. He wouldn’t need to fire off threatening social media posts.
And now it feels like the walls are closing in. It’s not just Democrats pushing for transparency, but Republicans, too. And his MAGA base is in fact demanding it. How much longer can Teflon Don withstand the calls coming from inside the house?
S.E. Cupp is the host of "S.E. Cupp Unfiltered" on CNN.
Donald Trump’s Epstein Mess Keeps Getting Worse was originally published by the Tribune Content Agency and is republished with permission.
The worst deal in the history of deals