The Crime May be Worse Than The Coverup*
This case may be an exception to the rule that the coverup is worse than the crime . . . and this coverup is a “total disaster”
Coverups are designed to keep both the subject of the coverup and the coverup itself . . . covered up. This coverup is a “total disaster,” in Trump parlance. The effort to keep secret any “mention” of Trump in the Epstein files was not subtle or nuanced, and Bondi — who may be a lot of things but isn’t stupid — couldn’t have expected the coverup would remain . . . covered up, not with 1,000 FBI personnel instructed to comb through the wreckage and “flag” any records in which Trump was mentioned.
The files include a factual basis for the July 2, 2019 indictment of Epstein in the Southern District of New York — sex trafficking of underage girls including rape and conspiracy to sex traffic underage girls including rape — and the likely manufacture and possession of child pornography.[i] The indictment does not identify the alleged coconspirators which, of course, is part of the intrigue.
The administration’s coverup has the appearance of a panicked reaction to learning that the content of the Epstein files is orders of magnitude worse for Trump than the ignominy the administration will suffer for the poorly devised and clumsily executed coverup. And the Republican-led Congress, coming to terms with the reality that it likely cannot use the Epstein case as a political cudgel against Democratic elites, is now complicit in the coverup. Better to keep dear leader’s interactions with Epstein and his potential misconduct a secret even if, or especially because, it involves young girls?
The well-oiled machine that defines this administration went from
We need to release the list to
We will release the list to
The list is on my desk to
There is no list to
Obama created the list.
Trump then equated the “Russia Russia Russia hoax” to what he now claims is the “Epstein hoax”[ii] — a “hoax” he created which, according to him, only “stupid” and “foolish” Republicans would believe.
This coverup was necessary because the administration ran out of runway to land its promise of complete transparency to reveal details of the Q-Anon-style Epstein conspiracy. See Why the Epstein case looms large in MAGA world (Mike Wendling, BBC News, July 18, 2025). Trumpers designed the conspiracy to create suspicion that Democratic elites were engaged in pedophilia which the deep state must be keeping a secret. This “political fraud” had no “rational endgame.” See Trump’s subordinates ran an Epstein Ponzi scheme. Now comes the bank run (Jason Willick, The Washington Post, July 18, 2025).[iii]
Despite the lengthy conspiracy designed to target the deep state and elite Democrats, if there really was no there there, the Trump administration could easily have opened the files (subject, of course, to protecting the hundreds of victims). Trump could have claimed the Biden administration must have culled out all the damaging details, even though Trump’s DOJ originally controlled the investigation and files, and it was Trump’s DOJ that indicted Epstein.
That, obviously, is not what happened. The contents of the files must be so egregious, so damaging that the administration calculated it was better to suffer the consequences of a ham-fisted coverup.
Richard J. Durbin (D-IL), Ranking Member, Senate Judiciary Committee, sent Bondi a letter on July 18, 2025, disclosing the well-known secret that she had
“pressured the FBI to put approximately 1,000 personnel in its Information Management Division, including the Record/Information Dissemination Section, which handles all requests submitted by the public under the Freedom of Information Act and Privacy Act, on 24-hour shifts to review approximately 100,000 Epstein-related records in order to produce more documents that could then be released on an arbitrarily short deadline. This effort, which reportedly took place from March 14 through the end of March, was haphazardly supplemented by hundreds of FBI New York Field Office personnel . . . .
“My office was told that these personnel were instructed to ‘flag’ any records in which President Trump was mentioned. Notably, in 2002, Mr. Trump said of Mr. Epstein, ‘I’ve known Jeff for 15 years. Terrific guy, He’s a lot of fun to be with. It is even said that he likes beautiful women as much as I do, and many of them are on the younger side.’ Just yesterday, it was reported that the Department previously reviewed a ‘leather-bound album’ comprised of dozens of letters from Mr. Epstein’s friends in celebration of his 50th birthday in 2003. The letters were collected by Mr. Epstein’s partner Ghislaine Maxwell and included one from President Trump that allegedly ‘contains several lines of typewritten text framed by the outline of a naked woman, which appears to be hand-drawn with a heavy marker … and the future president’s signature is a squiggly ‘Donald’ below her waist.’ . . .
“Given the serious questions about the veracity of your public statements regarding the Epstein-related records in DOJ’s possession and the effect those questions are having on the public’s ability to trust DOJ’s July 7 finding that there is ‘no incriminating “client list,”’ I ask that you provide the following information and materials no later than August 1, 2025.”
Senator Durbin then listed 13 categories of information he is seeking. Bondi, who is the beneficiary of a GOP majority in the Senate and Senate Judiciary Committee chair Chuck Grassley (R-IA) who will never authorize a subpoena for the attorney general to testify or produce records in connection with Epstein or the investigative files, will ignore Durbin’s requests.
This conflagration is only partially contained. Victims feel like they’re “being erased.” See Epstein victims say the Trump administration’s handling of the case adds to their anguish (Adam Freiss and Corky Siemaszko, NBC News, July 18, 2025) (“‘You never really heal,’ said Danielle Bensky, 38, who was a budding ballerina when she said Epstein abused her two decades ago. ‘And with what’s happening now, it feels like we’re being erased. All the brave women who came forward . . . all the work that we did to tell the world what happened to us, it’s all being erased.’”) And some of Trump’s staunchest supporters are revolting (pun intended), some even suggesting that Trump is protecting and has become part of the deep state he campaigned to expose and eradicate. See ‘The ghost of Epstein is haunting Trump’s presidency’: inside the ‘Maga’ revolt (David Smith, The Guardian, July 19, 2025) (“The ‘Make America Great Again’ base is in revolt as never before. The trigger was Trump’s broken promise to publicly release details about Jeffrey Epstein, a wealthy financier and convicted sex offender, who was facing federal charges of sex-trafficking minors when he died in jail in 2019. . . . The president’s ardent supporters spent the past decade fulminating over various foes, from Barack Obama and the deep state to undocumented immigrants and transgender children. Now they have a new target: Donald Trump himself.” (Emphasis added.)
As for Trump’s performative defamation lawsuit against Rupert Murdock for the Wall Street Journal’s publication of the “bawdy” birthday letter it claims Trump gifted Epstein in celebration of the latter’s 50th, there is little doubt that Murdock has the receipts. See Trump’s past just came back to haunt him. Here are the receipts, Rachel Cohen, MSN, July 20, 2025). He may be holding other shoes he is preparing to drop.
Murdock, who was largely responsible for the propaganda machine that boosted Trump to the presidency, recently met in secret with J.D. Vance at his ranch in Montana. Vance may be making his way to the on-deck circle. See JD Vance flew to Montana for secret meeting with Rupert Murdoch and Fox News executives Justin Baragona, The Independent, July 19, 2025).
Finally, The New York Times just published Inside the Long Friendship Between Trump and Epstein (Alan Feuer and Matthew Goldstein, July 19, 2025), providing details into that relationship. “For nearly 15 years, the two men socialized together in Manhattan and Palm Beach, Fla., before a falling out that preceded Mr. Epstein’s first arrest.” The article is not flattering of either man.
Epstein’s first arrest and his sweetheart deal which included a non-prosecution agreement (“NPA”) with the U.S. Attorney for the Southern District of Florida are detailed in the endnote.[iv]
I don’t think this scandal is going away anytime soon. Trump’s mania on the subject and his attacks on his base scream he is guilty as fuck. In my opinion.
*My brother the talented fiction writer and novelist, Robert Hodgson Van Wagoner, deserves considerable credit for offering both substantive and technical suggestions to https://medium.com/@richardvanwagoner His second novel, The Contortionists, which Rob himself narrates for the audio version, is a psychological page-turner about a missing child in a predominantly Mormon community. I have read the novel twice and listened to the audio version twice. It is a literary masterpiece.
[i] The indictment in United States v. Epstein, Southern District of New York, July 2, 2019, alleged one count of sex trafficking of minors and one count of conspiracy to commit sex trafficking of minors. The indictment does not identify coconspirators. The indictment alleged that from 2002 until 2005, Epstein created a vast network of underage victims in both New York and Florida whom he sexually abused and exploited. He was arrested July 6, 2019. The prosecution informed the court at a hearing to determine whether the court would release Epstein pending trial that the federal agents who searched Epstein’s $77 million residence found thousands of photos of nude and half-nude females in a safe, including at least one believed to be a minor.
[ii] It might not be such a good idea for Trump to make that equivalency, given the five-volume bipartisan Senate Intelligence Committee Report detailing Russia’s interference in the 2016 election and the recently released report by Trump’s hand-selected CIA Director Ratcliffe finding that the intelligence community’s broad-based conclusion that Russia sought to sway the 2016 election in Trump’s favor was sound. See Why Trump shouldn’t try to draw parallels between his Epstein and Russian scandals (Steve Benen, MSNBC, July 17, 2025) (“If the president believes the Russia scandal and the Epstein scandal are of equal validity, then the White House has a real problem on its hands.”).
[iii] “It would be one thing if the Trump 2024 campaign simply rode the populist energy generated by theories about Epstein. The mysterious financier socialized with the rich and powerful — including Trump and former president Bill Clinton — pleaded guilty to soliciting a minor for prostitution in 2008, and died in jail, apparently by suicide, after being indicted again in 2019. . . .
“But after winning the election, Trump and his administration went a fateful step further. They systematically stoked anticipation for a big reveal. First, to run the Federal Bureau of Investigation, Trump tapped two provocateurs whose qualifications included touting Epstein conspiracies. “Put on your big-boy pants and let us know who the pedophiles are,” said now-FBI Director Kash Patel in 2023. In February, before joining the FBI as Patel’s deputy, Dan Bongino said, “Who’s on those tapes? Who’s in those black books? Why have they been hiding it?”
“Attorney General Pam Bondi didn’t just go on Fox News in February to tease that Epstein’s client list was ‘on my desk’ — she staged an elaborate piece of political theater in which right-wing influencers were handed binders at the White House that said ‘The Epstein Files: Part 1.’ When the binders turned out to be a dud, an aggrieved Bondi sent an accusatory letter to Patel suggesting that evidence was being suppressed.”
[iv] A 53 page draft indictment against Epstein prepared by the office of the U.S. Attorney for the Southern District of Florida is not in circulation. Alex Acosta, who later became Trump’s Secretary of Labor during his first administration, was the United States Attorney who brokered a deal with Epstein through his high profile lawyers Alan Dershowitz and Ken Starr. According to the Miami Herald, the draft indictment included lurid details of electronic communications Epstein had with some 36 young girls, some of whom he knew were 14 years old, and some of whom he allegedly raped. The indictment presumably included enticement over electronic communications devices. That indictment never issued.
In a claim the district attorney in Florida disputed, Acosta saved the day by assuring Epstein would do some jail time, become a registered sex offender, and pay for his crimes. Epstein pleaded guilty to two counts of prostitution under Florida law and (sort of) served 13 months in jail under a very liberal work release program. Acosta entered a non-prosecution agreement (“NPA”) with Epstein which, strangely, encompassed and extended to certain of Epstein’s friends and associates. Some important people’s names were bandied about.
Acosta resigned as Trump’s Secretary of Labor in July 2019 “amid continuing questions about his handling of a sex crimes case involving Financier Jeffrey Epstein when Mr. Acosta was a federal prosecutor in Florida.”
The Office of Professional Responsibility for the Department of Justice conducted an “Investigation into the U.S. Attorney’s Office for the Southern District of Florida’s Resolution of Its 2006–2008 Federal Criminal Investigation of Jeffrey Epstein and Its Interactions with Victims during the Investigation.” Accompanying the report was the DOJ Office of Professional Responsibility Executive Summary Report (November 20, 2020), which included the following:
“The Department of Justice (Department) Office of Professional Responsibility (OPR) investigated allegations that in 2007–2008, prosecutors in the U.S. Attorney’s Office for the Southern District of Florida (USAO) improperly resolved a federal investigation into the criminal conduct of Jeffrey Epstein by negotiating and executing a federal non-prosecution agreement (NPA). The NPA was intended to end a federal investigation into allegations that Epstein engaged in illegal sexual activity with girls. OPR also investigated whether USAO prosecutors committed professional misconduct by failing to consult with victims of Epstein’s crimes before the NPA was signed or by misleading victims regarding the status of the federal investigation after the signing.”
In conclusion, the Summary Report found that while Acosta “did not commit professional misconduct with respect to the development, negotiation, and approval of the NPA . . . Acosta’s decision to resolve the federal investigation through the NPA constitute[d] poor judgment. Although this decision was within the scope of Acosta’s broad discretion and OPR d[id] not find that it resulted from improper factors, the NPA was a flawed mechanism for satisfying the federal interest that caused the government to open its investigation of Epstein.”
The Summary Report further found that while “none of the subject attorneys committed professional misconduct with respect to the government’s interactions with victims . . . the government’s lack of transparency and its inconsistent messages led to victims feeling confused and ill-treated by the government; gave victims and the public the misimpression that the government had colluded with Epstein’s counsel to keep the NPA secret from the victims; and undercut public confidence in the legitimacy of the resulting agreement. The overall result of the subjects’ anomalous handling of this case understandably left many victims feeling ignored and frustrated and resulted in extensive public criticism. In sum, OPR concludes that the victims were not treated with the forthrightness and sensitivity expected by the Department.”