For years, Republicans and MAGA influencers have been keen to rip the lid off a supposed government conspiracy to cover up information related to Jeffrey Epstein’s crimes and alleged associates. Many key figures who now serve in the Trump administration pledged to do exactly that.
The administration’s failures to live up to those promises and its bizarre handling of the situation now have it scrambling. On Wednesday night, that will take the form of top officials strategizing at Vice President JD Vance’s residence, CNN is now reporting.
But their task is only getting harder.
And that’s in large part because a growing chorus of Epstein’s victims and their allies now suggest there could indeed be a cover-up afoot.
One forged by the same MAGA administration that built itself up as the antidote.
To be clear, President Donald Trump has not been accused of any crimes in relation to Epstein. But repeatedly in recent days and weeks, those victims and allies have stepped forward to raise serious questions about the Trump administration’s handling of the matter. They’ve complained about favorable treatment of convicted Epstein accomplice Ghislaine Maxwell. They’ve objected to the lack of disclosure. They’ve complained about the administration’s treatment of them.
They’ve invoked the phrase “cover-up” on at least three occasions. Others have more subtly pointed in that direction.
Victims have raised concerns about the government’s handling of the matter for years – in particular focusing on a favorable non-prosecution agreement Epstein landed in 2007 and the years before he was later charged – but their complaints are now directed squarely at the Trump administration.
All of which makes it much more difficult for the administration to just move on, as the president would clearly prefer.
Last week, family members of one of Epstein’s and Maxwell’s most prominent accusers, Virginia Giuffre, cited Trump’s recent admission that he had been aware that Epstein recruited Giuffre from Mar-a-Lago. They cited other evidence that Trump was aware of Epstein’s affinity for young girls and women and said, “It makes us ask if he was aware of Jeffrey Epstein and Ghislaine Maxwell’s criminal actions.”
(Giuffre died by suicide earlier this year.)
In another letter, Giuffre family members and other accusers also cited the still-unexplained prison transfer of Maxwell to a lower-security prison camp that sex offenders like her don’t appear eligible for, without a waiver. That news came shortly after Maxwell, who’s serving a 20-year sentence, was interviewed by Deputy Attorney General Todd Blanche. And it comes as Trump has dangled the possibility of pardoning Maxwell, who’s appealing her conviction.
“This move smacks of a cover up,” they wrote. “The victims deserve better.”
They’re not the only ones to raise concerns about the prison transfer.
Two attorneys who have represented Epstein accusers, Brad Edwards and Paul Cassell, said in a letter Tuesday that they were given no notice of Maxwell’s transfer or any chance to object.
They said the victims view the transfer “as extraordinarily insensitive and suggestive of ulterior purposes.”
That letter was one of several entered into the record as part of proceedings over whether to unseal grand jury testimony from the investigations into Maxwell and Epstein. And some of those letters have also raised concerns about a cover-up.
One unnamed victim in her letter appeared to cite a Bloomberg report that the FBI has redacted the names of Trump and other prominent public figures in the Epstein files – a report that CNN hasn’t confirmed.
The unnamed victim said, “I feel like the DOJ’s and FBI’s priority is protecting the ‘third-party’, the wealthy men by focusing on scrubbing their names off the files,” adding: “That is their focus? Wow!”
Another victim, Annie Farmer, offered similar thoughts. Her lawyer cited the Justice Department’s statement last month that it would not release “information related to third parties who neither have been charged or alleged to be involved” in Epstein’s and Maxwell’s crimes.
“Any effort to redact third party names smacks of a cover up,” Farmer’s lawyer said.
Farmer previously told The New York Times that she urged law enforcement and the FBI two decades ago to look more broadly into Epstein’s associates, including Trump, who was friendly with Epstein but has said they had a falling out. Farmer also described a troubling encounter with Trump and Epstein in Epstein’s office in the mid-1990s.
There is no evidence of Trump’s involvement in Epstein’s crimes, and Farmer said she had no evidence of criminal wrongdoing by Trump. The White House has denied the alleged encounter by saying, “The president was never in [Epstein’s] office.” But Farmer’s account reinforces how Trump’s name could appear in the Epstein files and how it might reflect poorly on him, even if there’s no accusation of wrongdoing.
Also suggesting a cover-up last month was Alicia Arden, who alleged that Epstein assaulted her in 1997.
Arden told NBC News that she supported Trump but believed “there’s a cover-up of some kind going on.”
She cited Attorney General Pam Bondi’s comments in February indicating she had Epstein’s client list on her desk – comments Bondi and the White House now claim referred to other Epstein-related documents. The DOJ now says there is no client list.
“She doesn’t want something to come out, and I don’t understand why,” Arden said. “Maybe the list is more horrifying than we think.”
Another anonymous Epstein accuser told NBC: “I am not surprised Trump is now saying we should stop talking about Epstein,” adding, “These people are trying to protect themselves.”
And David Boies, a prominent attorney who represented Giuffre, told NBC: “I think they ought to release the material after promising, and if they don’t, people will believe they are hiding something, and that cannot be tolerated.”
Boies points to something important. While Epstein-related conspiracy theories have been mostly pushed by Republicans and right-wing influencers, polls suggest large swaths of Americans buy into them, at least to some degree.
A CBS News-YouGov poll last month found Americans agreed 92-8% that the Epstein files “probably include damaging information about powerful or wealthy people.”
A Reuters-Ipsos poll showed Americans agreed 69-6% that the federal government was “hiding information” about Epstein’s clients and 60-12% that it was covering up details of his death (with many doubting he died by suicide, as the administration affirmed he did).
The comments of Epstein’s victims and their allies would seem to bolster that pre-existing belief.
And that makes it a lot harder to claim there’s nothing to see here – whether for Trump or the many people who have built followings by pushing these theories.
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