Trump is caught between his power base and the neo-cons in the Epstein scandal, explains Chris Bambery

When Donald Trump was campaigning for office he described the wars in Ukraine and Gaza as ‘Biden’s wars’, and pledged to end them and spend the money at home.  Now the Ukraine and Gaza wars are ‘Trump’s wars’, as he continues to arm and fund Ukraine and Israel.  

However it was the breaking of other campaign pledges which created the current wave of outrage among ‘Make America Great Again’ (Maga) supporters. That centres on the high-profile case involving Jeffrey Epstein, accused of providing sexual ‘partners’, often underage, for the rich and powerful. Conspiracy theorists feed off this case and this impacts on Trump’s support base. Epstein committed suicide in a New York jail in 2019, leading to more conspiracy theories.  

Trump supporters were outraged last week when US Attorney General Pam Bondi backed away from the president’s campaign pledge to release court documents that many believed contained details of Epstein’s alleged elite clientele. During the campaign, Trump said he would have ‘no problem’ releasing the Epstein case files, and after the election when asked whether he would ‘declassify’ the files he replied, saying ‘Yeah, yeah, I would.’ Bondi  herself had pledged to release major revelations about Epstein, including ‘a lot of names’ and ‘a lot of flight logs’, before reversing course.  

Trump has been hoist by his own petard having played along with the conspiracy theorists. ‘Several MAGA voices, including former Fox News host Tucker Carlson, have alleged that Epstein was employed by the Israeli security services.’ Picking up on this, The Guardian adds:  

‘Trump’s former vice-president, Mike Pence, told CBS News on Wednesday that “I think the time has come for the administration to release all of the files regarding Jeffrey Epstein’s investigation and prosecution”, while the conspiracy theorist Laura Loomer, a frequent close adviser of Trump’s, called for the appointment of a special counsel to handle the Epstein files investigation. “Obviously, this is not a complete hoax given the fact that [Epstein associate] Ghislaine Maxwell is currently serving 20 years in prison in Florida for her crimes and activities with Jeffrey Epstein, who we know is a convicted sexual predator” she said.’

The scale of belief in an establishment cover up

The Guardian continues, ‘Close to seven in 10 Americans in a recent Reuters/Ipsos poll said details around Epstein were being concealed. Sixty-nine per cent said they believed there had been concealment of facts on Epstein’s clients by the federal government, with close to 25% unsure whether facts had been concealed, according to the poll’.

According to the BBC, ‘In a survey conducted just before last November’s election, the Public Religion Research Institute (PRRI) think tank found that nearly a fifth of Americans agree with QAnon-linked statements, including most pointedly: “The government, media, and financial worlds in the US are controlled by a group of Satan-worshipping paedophiles who run a global child sex trafficking operation”.

QAnon is the group that led the attack on Capitol Hill when Trump lost the 2020 election.

In another quick reverse, Bondi’s Deputy Attorney General Todd Blanche on Friday said public interest in the Epstein case had led the Justice Department to file a request to unseal transcripts of the case.  But not the client list, which is what Maga supporters are demanding.

Trump was big friends with Epstein in the 1990s and this is coming back to haunt him. President Trump has filed a defamation lawsuit against The Wall Street Journal and its owners, including Rupert Murdoch, seeking at least $10bn in damages over its publication of a bombshell report on the president’s friendship with the infamous high-society sex offender Jeffrey Epstein.  

The lawsuit follows the paper reporting: ‘Jeffrey Epstein’s Friends Sent Him Bawdy Letters for a 50th Birthday Album. One Was from Donald Trump. The leather-bound book was compiled by Ghislaine Maxwell. The president says the letter is a fake thing.’  

Trump filed the lawsuit in federal court in the Southern District of Florida on Friday, as he tries to prevent a growing scandal around the Epstein case from spreading further and threatening to cause him serious political damage. Murdoch, who owns Fox News among much else, was a key Trump backer. Anger at the Republican base is beginning to create splits among its elite, it seems.

The problem the Maga base faces is where else can they turn but to Trump? He could dump Bondi, putting the blame on her, or turn on the Republican Party establishment, to appease his support.

The view that Epstein was a Mossad agent or asset is gaining ground. It has some unpleasant anti-Semitic overtones but feeds into the growing rejection among Maga supporters of the USA’s unconditional support for Benjamin Netanyahu. Tucker Carslon and Steve Bannon opposed Trump’s backing of Israel’s war on Iran.

While Trump cannot run again for president, he cannot just ignore the growing feeling among his base that Maga is being dropped as neo-cons seem to dominate the administration. Having promised to end America’s ‘forever wars’, Trump has decided to continue the flow of arms and cash to Ukraine and Israel. During his attack on Iran, it was clear, however, that he had no taste for an all-out war.

We don’t know how all this will play out. Much depends on how the left and the solidarity movement with Palestine react. That also depends on breaking with the Democratic leadership, unlike in last year’s election, when the left in the party simply backed Biden.