How Epstein has dogged Trump's second term unlike anything else

The backlash was swift. After leading figures in President Donald Trump's orbit spent years stoking expectations about what might be revealed in the government's records on Jeffrey Epstein, the second-term Republican's administration over the summer tried to close the book on the case. MAGA was furious.

“Why is Pam Bondi’s Justice Department covering up Jeffrey Epstein’s crimes and murder?” conservative commentator Tucker Carlson said of the U.S. attorney general on July 8, invoking a popular conspiracy theory about Epstein, the wealth manager who committed suicide in jail at the age of 66 while awaiting trial on sex trafficking charges.

A day earlier, DOJ officials had released a memo reaffirming Epstein killed himself in 2019 and declaring no more documents would be released in his case. It kicked off what has been one of the most remarkable episodes in Trump’s political career – six months of GOP recriminations, tawdry revelations and unusually staunch resistance from inside MAGA - that reaches another major milestone on Friday, Dec. 19, with the Justice Department's deadline to release the Epstein files.

The Trump administration's response to the Epstein issue has created a rolling drama that has consumed the Republican president's second term and the GOP-led Congress, said former Michigan GOP Rep. Fred Upton. “The failure to deal with it only let it fester and grow and metastasize into an issue that took over everything else,” said Upton, who argued it contributed to the longest government shutdown in U.S. history and weeks of congressional paralysis.

Epstein also has exposed the limits of Trump's considerable sway with his followers. It factored into two blockbuster rifts between the president and close allies – billionaire Elon Musk and Rep. Marjorie Taylor Greene, R-Georgia. And the Epstein files are the one issue where key congressional Republicans were poised to put their feet down and defy Trump, before he flipped and endorsed legislation to release the government’s records from the case.

“Having worked for Trump it has always seemed like he is Teflon, any scandal that has come his way has just been able to bounce right off him and not have the sticking power that we’ve seen the Epstein files have,” said Sarah Matthews, who served as deputy press secretary during Trump's first administration but resigned after the Jan. 6, 2021, attack on the Capitol and has since been a critic of the president.

White House spokeswoman Abigail Jackson defended the administration's handling of the Epstein issue. "The Trump Administration has done more for the victims than Democrats ever have," she said.

The Epstein legislation required the Trump administration to release all the government’s Epstein records within 30 days, a deadline that is approaching on Dec. 19. Now an issue that has dogged the term-limited Trump throughout his first year back in office is coming to a head.

'No one can defend this'

Despite the Trump administration’s initial resistance to releasing the documents, there has been a steady drip of revelations since the summer as Congress stepped up efforts to obtain records. They’ve put a spotlight on Trump’s relationship with Epstein. The two were friends for years. Epstein attended Trump’s second wedding, but the president said he ended the relationship because his friend “stole people that worked for me” at his Mar-a-Lago club.

Democrats on the House Oversight Committee released a birthday letter to Epstein they allege Trump signed that is outlined by a drawing of a nude woman, and emails where Epstein said Trump “knew about the girls.” Trump has fought back against the release of the records, suing The Wall Street Journal for its reporting on the topic. The president said he didn’t write the birthday letter and knows "nothing about” what Epstein is referring to in his email about Trump. Trump also has described the entire Epstein saga as a “hoax.”

After the issue flared up in July, Trump took to social media to declare that Epstein was being used to tarnish his administration and his supporters shouldn’t “waste Time and Energy on Jeffrey Epstein, somebody that nobody cares about.”

Many Americans aren’t buying it, though. A Reuters/Ipsos poll released this month found that 52% of U.S. adults disapprove of how Trump has handled the Epstein case. A majority also believe the government is hiding information about Epstein, including about his death and potential sex trafficking clients.

Epstein has been such a potent issue because “no one can defend this. No one," said Upton, who retired in 2023 after serving southwestern Michigan for 18 terms and standing out among Republicans for his vote to impeach Trump over the Jan. 6, 2021, riot at the U.S. Capitol.

“Sex island, underage woman, sex trafficking – just awful stuff,” Upton added, ticking off elements of the Epstein case. “No one can defend that."

'We need to release the Epstein list'

Trump’s insistence on moving on from Epstein also goes against what many in his orbit have been saying for years as they stoked interest in the case. After Epstein committed suicide in 2019, conspiracy theories abounded that he actually was murdered. There also has been speculation that Epstein trafficked underage women to high-profile clients, spawning calls to release the “client list.”

Then-Sen. JD Vance, an Ohio Republican, told a podcaster shortly before the end of the 2024 presidential campaign, “Seriously, we need to release the Epstein list; that is an important thing.”

The idea of unmasking elites who are being shielded from accountability fit into Trump’s populist, anti-establishment, drain-the-swamp political messaging.  

“President Trump campaigned against the Epstein class and then this controversy is maybe a little bit of a litmus test, or a line drawing,” said Archon Fung, a professor of citizenship and self-government at the Harvard Kennedy School. “Now people are wondering, well, are you against the Epstein class or are you in the Epstein class? So I think that’s kind of what’s going on now, figuratively.”

After Trump returned to the White House, Bondi began making overtures to MAGA on Epstein and did a Fox News interview where she was asked about an Epstein client list and said "it's sitting on my desk right now to review." So it was a major letdown for many on the right when the DOJ released the memo reaffirming Epstein died by suicide, saying no evidence of a client list had been found and no more records would be released.

The issue had been simmering for months. Musk, in his rift with Trump in June, said the president “is in” the Epstein files and that’s why they hadn’t been released.

The July 7 DOJ memo was the spark that lit a fire on Epstein, though. MAGA erupted. Trump wasn’t happy, saying – in a rebuke of some his most ardent supporters – that those who disapprove of his handling of the case are "weaklings" who have been "duped" and he doesn't need them.

Epstein issue won't fade

Yet Trump can’t seem to shake Epstein. Matthews, the former first-term Trump White House aide, said she’s been surprised at how much staying power the Epstein story has had.

“I think that’s in large part because of just how much they mishandled this,” she said, adding: “They built it up so much, about how they would release these files and expose these people for then Pam Bondi to just then completely drop the ball.”

Trump Chief of Staff Susie Wiles said in a Vanity Fair interview published on Dec. 16 that Bondi “completely whiffed” in how she initially handled the issue.

Meanwhile, Trump’s usual tactics haven’t worked in trying to quell the story. A pressure campaign to get Republicans to oppose legislation releasing the files failed when top Trump allies such as Reps. Greene and Lauren Boebert, R-Colorado, resisted.

With the bill poised to advance, Trump flipped and supported it. “It’s the first visible issue that shows a big rift in Trump’s support in Congress,” Fung said.

Greene said her position on Epstein led to a fallout with Trump, who publicly slammed her. She later announced she would resign from Congress effective Jan. 5, 2026

The issue is a sensitive one for the GOP. "I'm done with Epstein, honestly,” Boebert said when asked about Epstein recently on the steps of the Capitol, adding that a reporter should "find something better to talk about.”

Yet the revelations keep coming. Recent document dumps from Congress include pictures of the home Epstein owned on a Caribbean island and photos of Trump and former President Bill Clinton with Epstein. It all invites the question: What’s next?

Contributing: Zachary Schermele