Will the Epstein Story Hurt Trump in MAGA-Land? Wake Up—It Already Has

So, Kash Patel told us over the
weekend that the Jeffrey Epstein “conspiracy theories just aren’t true” and
“never have been.” If you’re thinking, “Hey, wait a second; isn’t that the same
Kash Patel who spent years promoting those exact conspiracy theories—and who told
Glenn Beck in late 2023 that Epstein’s alleged ‘black book’ is ‘under
direct control of the director of the FBI?”—then you might well be wondering why
Patel, who of course now heads that very same FBI, has done such an abrupt
about-face.

The likely real-Earth answer is
that Patel was just making shit up back then to get attention and clicks. Now
that he has actual power and access to the files he spent all that time
fulminating about, the jig is up: He is stuck with the probable reality, which
is that there is no file of names of Epstein clients. But real-Earth answers don’t satisfy conspiracy theorists. Indeed, real-Earth
answers merely prove to conspiracy theorists that the conspiracy is even more
vast and intricate and iniquitous than they’d dared imagine.

We’ll circle back to that, but
right now, let’s cut to the chase. Will this MAGA-world rift do real damage to
Donald Trump? What do I mean “will”? It already has. Trump can lie all day long
about the economy, the world, Medicaid cuts, immigrants, Democrats, Rosie
O’Donnell; lies on these and other topics, his base eats up. They only
deepen the bond.

But seeming to link arms with the
deep state in burying the Epstein story? That is evidence of a corruption that
upends the very moral order of MAGA world.

Yet that’s exactly what Trump has
done. Over the weekend, he posted
a long and typically semi-literate rant of his own, defending Attorney
General Pam Bondi (“doing a FANTASTIC JOB!”—I wonder if she felt disappointed
by the fact that Trump included only one exclamation point) and imploring
followers not to waste upper-case “Time and Energy” on Epstein.