Why the Epstein case looms large in MAGA world

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Getty Images Donald Trump, his now wife Melania, Jeffrey Epstein and Ghislaine Maxwell pose for a photo in February 2000

When Jack Posobiec walked into the Department of Justice in Washington, DC last February, he thought he would finally get some answers about Jeffrey Epstein. But when he and other MAGA supporters were given essentially just rehashed, already-public material – and when the government put a damper on the release of any new information this July – they balked. “We were all told more was coming. That answers were out there and would be provided. Incredible how utterly mismanaged this Epstein mess has been. And it didn’t have to be,” Posobiec posted on social media on 7 July. Now, Donald Trump is finding it hard to shake loose the conspiracy theories that have animated his base since he first broke through into Republican politics a decade ago.

Getty Images Jack Posobiec is a vocal MAGA commentator with millions of followers

Posobiec, who emerged from the fringes of the internet in 2016 when he spread false rumours about a child abuse ring based in a Washington DC restaurant – a conspiracy theory that became known as Pizzagate – is just one of many MAGA die-hards who believes officials are hiding key truths about Epstein’s life and death. The disgraced financier and convicted sex offender died by suicide in a New York prison cell in 2019 while he was awaiting trial on sex trafficking charges. On a recent podcast hosted by Breitbart News editor Alex Marlow, Posobiec said the MAGA base see this case as shorthand for the thorough rot of the so-called “deep state”. “It’s not that they care about Epstein personally,” he said. “It’s that they care that there’s this optic that Epstein was somehow involved with a shadowy system that actually has control over our government, control over our institutions, control of our lives, and really is a ruling power over us.” Over the years, some have claimed that government officials possess files on Epstein that reveal sordid details, including that a “client lint” exists with notable names on it who may have participated in some Epstein’s alleged crimes. Trump has, in the past, played to that crowd. During last year’s election campaign, he said he would have “no problem” releasing Epstein case files, and after the election directly answered a question about whether he would “declassify” the files by saying: “Yeah, yeah, I would.” Conspiratorial thinking has been a part of President Trump’s movement from the outset. His entry into the once-crowded world of Republican Party politics a decade ago came as he amplified the false theory that Barack Obama wasn’t born in the United States. Now, however, the world of conspiracy is biting back.

Watch: Trump calls out “stupid Republicans” in Jeffrey Epstein files saga

Epstein’s crimes are real and horrific, and there remains the possibility that further information could emerge about them. But they have also become subsumed by grander narratives – Pizzagate, and later QAnon, the sprawling interactive conspiracy theory that swamped the internet during Trump’s first term, pushing the idea that the highest echelons of society were controlled by a child-abusing elite cabal. The conspiracy theory spread through cryptic messages posted by a pseudonymous character called Q. Mike Rothschild, author of several books on Trump-era conspiracies, including The Storm Is Upon Us: How QAnon Became a Movement, Cult and Conspiracy of Everything, said Epstein was mentioned in several such messages dating back to late 2017. “Epstein is seen as one of the major players in a global ‘paedo elite’ that’s been trafficking children for centuries, and that Q and Trump were supposed to put an end to once and for all,” he told the BBC. But after the justice department meeting in February, administration officials, including FBI director Kash Patel and his deputy Dan Bongino – who both stoked Epstein rumours for years – started to dampen talk of any major revelations. Then, on 8 July, the Department of Justice and FBI said in a memo that Epstein’s cause of death was suicide and there was no evidence he had a “client list”. The president seemed eager to move on, calling the Epstein case “sordid, but it’s boring” while also blaming Democrats for continuing to make it an issue. Many Trump supporters are happy to follow the president’s lead. But a subset of extremely online MAGA supporters are still deeply passionate about the Epstein case. Trump orders officials to release Epstein court documents

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