A billboard in Times Square calls for the release of the Epstein files on July 23, 2025 in New York City.
In May 2025, Attorney General Pam Bondi reportedly informed President Donald Trump that his name appeared multiple times in the government’s files related to Jeffrey Epstein, the late financier convicted of sex trafficking. The revelation, confirmed by sources cited in The Wall Street Journal and CNN, has reignited public scrutiny over the administration’s handling of the Epstein case and its broader implications for democratic transparency.
The new reports contradict an account given earlier this month by the president, who responded "no, no" when asked by a reporter whether Bondi had told him that his name appeared in the files.
Not surprisingly, the response from a White House spokesman to the increasing controversy was labeled as a "fake news story."
The Epstein files are a trove of federal documents, including flight logs, communications, and investigative materials tied to Epstein’s criminal activities. While being named in these files does not imply criminal wrongdoing, the presence of high-profile figures—including Trump—has fueled demands for full disclosure.
During his presidential campaign last year, Donald Trump pledged to release files related to Epstein.
Since then, frustration has mounted among his supporters over the administration’s handling of the matter—particularly its failure to disclose the rumored “client list” allegedly tied to Epstein’s network. Earlier this month, however, a joint memo from the Justice Department and the FBI stated that no such list exists, challenging long-held speculation and fueling calls for greater transparency.
Polls show that only 17% of Americans approve of Trump’s handling of the Epstein files. Even among his supporters, there’s growing frustration over the administration’s reluctance to release more documents. Critics argue that withholding information undermines public trust and contradicts Trump’s earlier promises.
The controversy underscores a broader tension between government accountability and political damage control. For many, the Epstein files represent a test of whether powerful individuals can be held to the same standards of transparency as ordinary citizens. As calls for disclosure grow louder—including from victims’ advocates and bipartisan lawmakers—the administration faces mounting pressure to act.
When officials prioritize image management over truth-telling, they may obscure facts, shift blame, or exploit media cycles to minimize fallout. Strategic messaging isn’t inherently bad—but when it replaces substance, it can erode trust and confuse voters about what’s actually at stake. Political damage control can protect institutions from chaos, but overused, it insulates power from responsibility.
Citizens can’t make informed decisions if public officials operate in secrecy or sidestep scrutiny. Accountability ensures policies and actions are visible, debatable, and correctable. When leaders disclose conflicts of interest, respond to investigations, and accept oversight, it signals to the public that governance is in service of people—not power. Mistakes or misconduct don’t have to be the death knell of democracy. Accountability creates the conditions for repair, apology, and reform.
Ultimately, true democratic resilience stems not from flawless governance, but from the willingness to confront flaws openly.
U.S. President Donald Trump at the White House, Washington, DC. (Photo by Mark Wilson/Getty Images)
Hugo Balta is the executive editor of the Fulcrum and the publisher of the Latino News Network.
A photograph of US President Donald Trump and convicted child sex offender Jeffrey Epstein is displayed after being unofficially installed in a bus shelter on July 17, 2025 in London, England.
This morning, many of us awoke to a jarring juxtaposition of headlines: The Wall Street Journal published a column revealing that Jeffrey Epstein received a birthday album filled with bawdy letters—including one from President Donald Trump. And shortly thereafter, news broke that Trump directed Attorney General Pam Bondi to seek the release of grand jury transcripts related to Epstein, citing mounting political pressure and intensifying public scrutiny.
Late last night, Trump took to Truth Social, posting that he had requested Bondi release “any and all pertinent Grand Jury testimony, subject to Court approval,” framing the controversy as a “SCAM, perpetuated by the Democrats.”
This strategic move came after years of speculation among Trump’s most ardent supporters about the Epstein case. Many in MAGA have propagated conspiracy theories suggesting Epstein was murdered in jail, not that he died by suicide. A distrust of government institutions has fed rumors of a secret client list buried by the Department of Justice, painted as evidence of a vast “deep state” cover-up.
With the Journal’s publication of Trump’s letter and growing demands from MAGA loyalists, Trump’s call to release the transcripts isn’t just reactive—it’s a calculated pivot.
To understand why, we need only revisit a similarly critical moment in 2016.
Just one month before Election Day, the infamous Access Hollywood tape surfaced: Trump, caught on a hot mic, made vulgar remarks about women and boasted of sexually aggressive behavior. Many believed it would be his political undoing. Yet after making an apology, Trump went on the offensive—calling his remarks “locker room banter,” invoking Bill Clinton’s alleged indiscretions, and positioning himself as the victim of a media hit job.
It was Trump’s masterful example of narrative control.
And today he’s doing it again.
As the Epstein discourse spirals out of control, Trump is attempting to seize control of the narrative.. On July 16th, he posted on Truth Social:
“The Jeffrey Epstein Hoax... My PAST supporters have bought into this bullshit, hook, line, and sinker... Let these weaklings continue forward and do the Democrats’ work... I don’t want their support anymore!”
As Trump so often does, he reframed the scandal as yet another “Radical Left Democrat scam”—equating it to past controversies like the Steele Dossier, Hunter Biden’s laptop, and the Russia investigation. Speaking to reporters, he reiterated:
“It was a hoax. It’s all been a big hoax. It’s perpetrated by the Democrats and some stupid Republicans...”
This is the standard Trump strategy: deflect, reframe, and dominate the narrative. By casting himself as the target of a partisan witch hunt, using the scandal to reinforce MAGA loyalty and their perception of him not merely as a survivor, but as a fighter against corruption and the deep state.
As grand jury transcripts are released, the media will undoubtedly spotlight prominent names connected to Epstein. This will give Trump the perfect opportunity to switch from defense to offense. He’ll be in control, focusing on what suits his narrative, ignoring what doesn’t, and channeling the chaos into an all too familiar pattern: blaming the media, vilifying the Democrats, and claiming victimhood.
The strategy is not without risk, but when backed into a corner, Trump had little choice. However, as proven so often in the past, Trump's ability to dominate the news cycle, even amid chaos, has proven to be a winning strategy.
Seems implausible? Stay tuned.
David Nevins is co-publisher of The Fulcrum and co-founder and board chairman of the Bridge Alliance Education Fund.
In confronting the Trump administration's discriminatory treatment toward specific states, all of us need to be inventive and courageous.
Sometimes, it turns out that two wrongs do make a right. In politics, a steadfast commitment to doing the morally right thing disadvantages the victims of lawlessness and injustice.
The famous Italian political thinker, Niccolo Machiavelli, captured this political imperative in 1532, when he explained that “a man who wants to act virtuously in every way necessarily comes to grief among so many who are not virtuous. Therefore, if a Prince wants to maintain his rule, he must be prepared not to be virtuous, and to make use of this or not according to need.”
Public officials in blue states who are experiencing the effects of the Trump administration’s cavalier attitude toward the law are beginning to learn Machiavelli’s lesson. On June 29, NBC News reported that “Democratic legislators…are attempting to fight back against President Donald Trump’s efforts to withhold funding from their states with bills that aim to give the federal government a taste of its own medicine.”
“The novel and untested approach,” NBC went on, “would essentially allow states to withhold federal payments if lawmakers determine the federal government is delinquent in funding owed to them.”
Whether this ploy would pass constitutional muster remains to be seen. But, in the meantime, it offers states, that the Trump administration wants to punish, a way to fight back.
They should not miss this opportunity to assert state sovereignty and protect the residents of blue states from the wrath of a president who sees himself as the president of the Red States of America. His first-term record made that abundantly clear.
As the Atlantic’s Ronald Brownstein put it, “During his term in the White House, Donald Trump governed as a wartime president—with blue America, rather than any foreign country, as the adversary. He sought to use national authority to achieve factional ends—to impose the priorities of red America onto Democratic-leaning states and cities.”
Nothing has changed since the president began his second term. In fact, he has doubled down on his attacks on Democratic governors and mayors who lead places that he did not carry in November 2024.
California is a prime example. During January’s wildfires that ravaged parts of Los Angeles, the president took every opportunity to blast Governor Gavin Newsom and Mayor Karen Bass.
When he did act, he used the LA fires as an excuse to direct federal aid, not to the city, but to parts of California where he has political allies. The president “ordered federal agencies to immediately deliver more water—not to Southern California, but to the Central Valley hundreds of miles away, where agribusiness stands to profit.”
In response to demonstrations against his aggressive and indiscriminate deportation policy, Trump deployed the National Guard and a contingent of Marines in Los Angeles. He ignored the objections of Newsom and Bass and blamed them for what he called rampant lawlessness.
Following the agenda of the misbegotten Department of Government Efficiency, the administration, acting without Congressional authority, froze funds due to be paid by the federal government to states and took other punitive actions, seeming to again target blue states and cities. And where such actions were applied across the board, it is clear that they would have a disproportionate impact in blue states.
Examples include the closure of Department of Health and Human Services offices in Boston, Chicago, New York City, San Francisco, and Seattle. See any pattern here?
New York, Vermont, and California have also been singled out by the president for their efforts to mitigate climate change. In an executive order issued in April, he claimed, “These State laws and policies weaken our national security and devastate Americans by driving up energy costs for families coast-to-coast, despite some of these families not living or voting in States with these crippling policies.”
He offered no evidence to support those assertions.
Nonetheless, he recited a list of blue state trigger words and directed Attorney General Pam Bondi to “prioritize the identification of any such State laws purporting to address ‘climate change’ or involving ‘environmental, social, and governance’ initiatives, ‘environmental justice,’ carbon or ‘greenhouse gas’ emissions, and funds to collect carbon penalties or carbon taxes…[and to] expeditiously take all appropriate action to stop the enforcement of State laws.”
Until now, litigation has been the primary tool states have used to fight such discriminatory treatment.
However, as NBC News notes, legislators in places like Connecticut, Maryland, and New York are trying to open up a new way of responding. They have introduced bills to allow their states to respond by holding back payments to the federal government when the Trump administration “illegally withholds money from them for things like health care, food assistance, and environmental protections.”
This is the political equivalent of fighting fire with fire. Machiavelli would be proud.
NBC quotes David Moon, the Democratic majority leader in Maryland’s House of Delegates, who observed, “Trump is illegally withholding funds that have been previously approved. Without these funds, we are going to see Maryland residents severely harmed—we needed more options on the table for how Maryland could respond and protect its residents.”
As former Judge Nancy Gertner and two of her co-authors explain, “Federal taxes are largely collected by employers. In Massachusetts and California, the state is a major employer and could refuse to send tax dollars to the federal government. They also could mandate their local municipalities to follow suit.”
From time to time, states have invoked “states’ rights” to justify non-compliance with federal policies. But what Rep. Moon is describing is not that.
He simply wants the federal government to do what it is legally obliged to do and to recognize that it has an obligation to treat states equally unless it can demonstrate that it has a good reason not to. Partisan disagreements or political retribution are not one of them.
And we know that in terms of net revenue flows, residents and businesses in states like Massachusetts, New Jersey, Washington, and California pay more to the federal government through taxes than they receive in benefits and payments from Washington, D.C.
Withholding funds from the federal government is not a step to be taken lightly. Such efforts would surely be challenged in court and in the court of public opinion by the Trump administration.
They would tell judges that “the U.S. Constitution’s supremacy clause clearly gives the federal government precedence over states.” And they would tell the public that by withholding funds, blue states are engaging in lawless behavior.
Gertner and her colleagues caution that “a blue state boycott of federal taxes would be unlawful just as are many of Trump’s shakedowns.” That statement frames the problem.
As one after another of the guardrails and restraints on the administration fall by the wayside, its political opponents will almost certainly be the victims of more and more shakedowns. Remember Machiavelli.
In confronting and resisting the Trump administration, all of us, state government officials included, need to be inventive and courageous. Withholding funds from the federal government is one example of such inventiveness and courage.
It is well worth doing, even if it means following the advice of a sixteenth-century political strategist.
Austin Sarat is the William Nelson Cromwell professor of jurisprudence and political science at Amherst College.
U.S. President Donald Trump at the White House, Washington, DC.
Despite repeated calls from the public and some political figures for the complete release of files related to Jeffrey Epstein, including those containing a rumored "client list," the Donald Trump administration refuses to release all such documents fully.
Trump addressed internal tensions within his administration regarding the Epstein files in a lengthy rant on Truth Social Saturday, defending Attorney General Pam Bondi and urging his supporters to focus on the MAGA agenda.
Here are some excerpts:
What’s going on with my ‘boys’ and, in some cases, ‘gals?’ 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.
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?
LET PAM BONDI DO HER JOB — SHE’S GREAT! The 2020 Election was Rigged and Stolen, and they tried to do the same thing in 2024 — That’s what she is looking into as AG, and much more.
One year ago our Country was DEAD, now it’s the ‘HOTTEST’ Country anywhere in the World. Let’s keep it that way, and not waste Time and Energy on Jeffrey Epstein, somebody that nobody cares about.
But, despite Trump's attempts to downplay the Epstein case and shift blame to previous administrations, and questioning why the Epstein files had not been released earlier if they contained damaging information, renewed scrutiny and speculations surround the undisclosed documents.
The dispute within the Trump administration follows the Justice Department and FBI’s announcement last week that they found no evidence supporting claims that Epstein possessed a list of high-profile clients or was murdered in prison. Epstein died by suicide while in custody in 2019.
During the 2024 presidential campaign, Trump suggested he would release files related to Epstein, with a first batch publicized in February by Bondi, but that didn't happen.
Last week, NewsNation reported that FBI Deputy Director Dan Bongino and FBI Director Kash Patel wanted to unseal evidence months ago and release "every single piece of evidence they could, while protecting victims."
Patel changed his tune, posting on X: The conspiracy theories just aren't true, never have been. It's an honor to serve the President of the United States @realDonaldTrump — and I'll continue to do so for as long as he calls on me.
On Friday, CNN reported that Bongino was considering quitting his post over the dispute. Multiple sources told the cable news outlet that Bongino did not show up to work on Friday, fueling rumors that he is considering walking away.
Trump's MAGA followers seem unconvinced. Newsweek reports that for the first time, the Republican has been "ratioed" on his own social media platform, Truth Social. The term "ratioed" refers to when a social media post receives more replies than likes or shares, often signaling more disagreement or criticism than support.
Representative Ro Khanna (D-CA) announced plans to force a vote in the House of Representatives, demanding the full, unredacted release of all documents related to Epstein. On X, Khanna wrote:
Why are the Epstein files still hidden? Who are the rich & powerful being protected? On Tuesday, I'm introducing an amendment to force a vote demanding the FULL Epstein files be released to the public. The Speaker must call a vote & put every Congress member on record.
Jeffrey Epstein, the financier and convicted sex offender who died in prison in 2019, had associations with numerous high-profile figures, including politicians, business leaders, and royalty.
While authorities ruled his death a suicide, persistent conspiracy theories allege he was murdered to prevent the exposure of a supposed "client list" containing names of powerful individuals—including Presidents Donald Trump and Bill Clinton, as well as Britain's Prince Andrew.
Recently, billionaire Elon Musk claimed that the government has withheld Epstein-related records because Trump "is in the Epstein files." Though Trump has denied this assertion, Musk's comments have fueled further public interest in the unreleased documents.
Last year, author Michael Wolff — who wrote one of the most well-known insider tell-alls about Trump’s first term — revealed that he had roughly a hundred hours’ worth of interview recordings of Epstein talking about “his long-standing, deep relationship with Donald Trump," according to Jacobin magazine. Epstein bragged that he was the one who introduced Trump to First Lady Melania.
The Justice Department has not confirmed the existence of such a list, and investigations have found no evidence supporting claims of foul play in Epstein's death.
The Trump administration faces the herculean challenge of reuniting a fractured base ahead of the 2026 midterm elections.
Hugo Balta is the executive editor of the Fulcrum and the publisher of the Latino News Network.
