A new poll, on a matter that adamantly should not be decided by untutored public opinion, finds that 79% of Americans believe all of the documents relating to the Jeffrey Epstein case should be disclosed. A shocking result? Not quite. Ask Americans, who’ve been hearing wall-to-wall accusations about secret sex abuse cabals, celebrity client lists and government cover-ups whether they want to know the full story and — whaddaya know — they say yes.
They’re wrong, and I’ll come back to that. But first, there is someone who is less enthusiastic about disclosing all available records, and that person is President Donald Trump. Asked last April whether he would release whatever information the government has about a number of A-list conspiracy theories, Trump was unequivocal…until it came to Epstein.
Q: Would you declassify the JFK files?
A: Yeah. I did a lot of it.
Q: Would you declassify the 9/11 files?
A: Yes.
Q: Would you declassify the Epstein files?
A: Yeah, yeah, I would.
Q: All right.
A: I guess I would. I think that less so because you don’t want to affect people’s lives if it’s phony stuff in there, because it’s a lot of phony stuff with that whole world. But I think I would, or at least —
Q: You think that would restore trust, help restore trust?
A: I don’t know about Epstein so much as I do the others, certainly about the way he died. … But I’d go a long way toward that one. …
On the matter of releasing the results of investigations, the man is right.
There’s a reason we have a tradition in this country (formerly a nation of laws) that strongly discourages the government from releasing the results of investigations that do not result in a criminal charge — precisely because these investigations unearth unsubstantiated gossip, bad faith accusations and other potentially damaging information — and if there is no criminal procedure, the citizen will be denied an opportunity to rebut the charges. So Trump is correct that a responsible government should tread carefully before releasing the results of criminal investigations or other inquiries, taking care to redact names or other identifying information about innocent people.
Now let’s come back to the world we actually inhabit. That’s not Trump’s motivation. Trump has done more than anyone to demolish the laws, traditions and basic decency that should govern in these matters. He has himself spewed the kind of incendiary accusations about people (of treason, of vote stealing, even of murder) that undermine faith in the system. Even on the topic of Epstein, Trump was happy to pile on with MAGA forces in stoking suspicion. In 2019, he retweeted a post suggesting that Bill Clinton might have been involved with Epstein. Asked to elaborate, he resorted to the “just asking questions” dodge: “So you have to ask: Did Bill Clinton go to the island? That’s the question. If you find that out, you’re going to know a lot.”
He and the forces he unleashed have destroyed the norms and rules that protect innocent people from unjust accusations and flagrant incitement. He cannot hide behind those destroyed norms now. They’re gone. MAGA influencers have stoked the Epstein conspiracy theories and countless other lies and calumnies with Trump’s blessing for years. In 2023, Kash Patel confidently explained why the Biden administration hadn’t released the Epstein files: “Simple, because of who’s on that list.” Talk show host Dan Bongino, now deputy director of the FBI, repeatedly demanded to know “what the hell they were hiding.”
Epstein was an adjudicated pedophile. But that was just the springboard to suggest a far more comprehensive corruption deforming elites in America. MAGA foot soldiers like Alex Jones, Tucker Carlson and Benny Johnson piled on, encouraging their audiences to believe that Epstein was a deep state operative who ran a pedophile ring that serviced every liberal or Democrat MAGA despised.
Trump has never shown anything like concern for the innocent — just the opposite. If the innocent are in his way, he will mow them down without a backward glance. If you’re a law-abiding, legal immigrant unjustly detained or even deported to a foreign prison by ICE, don’t expect this president to pause for a moment. If you are a legal permanent resident wrongfully detained by immigration authorities for exercising your First Amendment right to speak, don’t turn to this president for relief. If you’ve been defamed or targeted or even had a violent mob sent after you shouting “Hang Mike Pence,” don’t expect concern for your innocence to cross Trump’s mind.
No, the only person whose privacy and reputation Trump has any concern about is Trump. And that’s why his uncharacteristic reticence about releasing the Epstein files is suspicious. He was happy to encourage the most reckless speculation about a deep state pedophile conspiracy while he was running for office, but now that the worm has turned, he’s suddenly concerned about “innocent” people being hurt. It is impossible to imagine that his reticence arises from anything other than self-interest. He seems to be running scared.
It’s poetic justice.
Mona Charen is policy editor of The Bulwark and host of the “Beg to Differ” podcast.