Trump Scrambles to Create a Distraction From Epstein Files

Donald Trump is desperate for anything to distract the angry mob seeking answers on alleged sex trafficker Jeffrey Epstein. Now, he’s hoping to toss them some dirt on Hillary Clinton—too bad nobody cares about that.

During an appearance Wednesday on Real America’s Voice, Just the News founder John Solomon reported that Trump was open to declassifying information tied to conspiracy theories about the former secretary of state.

One piece was the classified annex of Inspector General Michael Horowitz’s 2018 report on the FBI’s actions ahead of the 2016 election. The missing annex had become the center of right-wing conspiracies that the FBI had ignored credible information of Clinton’s wrongdoing in the investigation of her private email server.

When asked if he’d declassify the annex, Trump told Just the News, “I would do that.”

“Absolutely. I think it should be looked at. The whole thing was a scam. I would do that broadly,” Trump said.

Trump also indicated he was open to declassifying another classified annex from Special Counsel John Durham’s 2023 report, which supposedly contained evidence that Clinton had approved a proposal to “vilify Donald Trump by stirring up a scandal claiming interference by the Russian security services.”

“I would declassify it, yeah. Why not?” Trump told Just the News. “I would absolutely declassify it.”

But Trump’s promises are far from an actual commitment. Trump had previously pledged the “total declassification of any & all documents” related to Russiagate and Clinton’s use of a private email server during his first term, but attorneys from the Department of Justice told the Office of White House Council to simply disregard the president’s hollow threat.

Trump has been increasingly desperate to redirect the massive backlash over his administration’s toothless findings in its investigation into Epstein, which produced no additional documents and found that the sex offender kept no incriminating “client list,” even though his attorney general claimed one had been sitting on her desk.

The president posted a furious rant on Truth Social Tuesday, saying that any of his followers who were interested in the Epstein case were falling for Democratic “bullshit,” and compared it to the “totally fake and made up story used in order to hide Crooked Hillary Clinton’s big loss in the 2016 Presidential Election.” Similarly to Russia’s interference in the 2016 election, Trump now claims that Epstein files are a “hoax.”

Unfortunately for Trump, Americans don’t care about Clinton’s emails nearly as much as they care about his own administration’s scandal: Signalgate, the infamous use of a non-secure messaging app by several top Cabinet officials to discuss sensitive war plans.

After Signalgate, a YouGov survey found that nearly 75 percent of respondents believed the scandal was “very” or “somewhat” serious.

After Clinton’s email scandal in 2015, YouGov found that 56 percent of respondents thought the issue was “very serious” and “somewhat serious.” By 2022, people had become more concerned, but only 62 percent saw it as “very serious” or “somewhat serious,” likely at least in part resulting from Trump’s constant griping about it.

Meanwhile, a Quinnpac Poll published Wednesday found that 63 percent of American voters disapprove of the Trump administration’s handling of the Epstein files.

Trump’s looking for anything at all that can distract the angry mob. Just in case the almond moms were sharpening their pitchforks, Trump even promised that he would get real sugar added to Coca Cola instead of high fructose corn syrup. Now there’s something everyone can get behind!

Trump’s dismissal of the Jeffrey Epstein case is giving some of his most ardent supporters—like Alex Jones—a bit of an identity crisis.

“Trump, we’ve believed in you, we’ve seen you do great work, we’ve seen the bad guys, the worst certified people on earth come after you,” Jones said in a video on Wednesday, staring directly into the camera. He then accurately detailed the Trump administration’s history of contradictory policy on the Epstein files. “And now we’ve seen you uncharacteristically flip flop on your promises back and forth. ‘There was no Epstein case, there’s nothing to see here. Ok, we’re gonna investigate it, we’re gonna put it in a special counsel, no there’s nothing there, anybody investigating it is fake news and is a traitor.’ Your most loyal supporters and good people are the ones pointing this out.”

Jones captioned the video “why is Trump destroying MAGA in real time?”

If I was a QAnon-adjacent, Epstein-obsessed MAGA conspiracy theorist, I would be feeling dejected, angry, and confused right now too. Donald Trump and his inner circle made this issue central to their campaign, making promises upon promises to reveal every secret regarding the Epstein files. Now they’re saying there’s nothing there, and that anyone who ever thought so is a complete idiot. It’s been brutally amusing to watch in real time.

“To say ‘you either agree with everything I do or you’re not in our club, I don’t want you,’ well, that sounds kind of like a thorough-bred cult to me,” he said in another video where he compared MAGA to a cult. “When somebody starts saying don’t question things or you can’t be in our club, yeah that’s a cult.”

“I have to say at this point, if you look at the scales here, whether it happened a year ago or six months ago or a month ago, stuff really started to change when Elon [Musk] left, with what he discovered,” he added. “And I think it has a lot of credibility what he said. Trump’s implicated here. I’m not saying sex abuse or kids but definitely somehow, somebody close to him … you are compromised. And If you go with the deep state and continue down this road … the coverup is even worse than whatever would have come out. So I’m loyal to the truth.”

While some MAGA loyalists have scapegoated Attorney General Pam Bondi for various reasons—like her lying about the client list being on her desk, or claims that she is a nefarious deep state operative who strong-armed FBI director Kash Patel and Deputy Director Bongino on the Epstein memo—but few have had the gall to make the connection Jones did here. Perhaps Trump wants everyone to forget about Epstein because he or his friends would be implicated. Either way, the hardcore wing of the MAGA movement is in shambles over this. And as we approach week three of the fallout, it’s unclear if they’ll ever fully recover. There may be more tears from Jones in the near future.

Elected representatives say they aren’t interested if their constituents are detained by federal immigration officials.

On Capitol Hill Wednesday, South Carolina Representative Ralph Norman, Texas Representative Troy Nehls, and Alabama Senator Tommy Tuberville brushed off reports that American citizens were being targeted by ICE agents in overzealous raids.

“Congressman, do you care if U.S. citizens accidentally get detained in ICE raids?” Migrant Insider’s Pablo Manríquez asked each of them.

“No, I’m not concerned about that,” confessed Norman, underscoring that he was “so appreciative” of border czar Tom Homan’s actions to force undocumented immigrants out of the country en masse.

“I’m concerned about law and order in America. If you’re an illegal, you don’t need to be here,” Norman said, apparently forgetting that ICE has no authority to arrest, detain, or deport U.S. citizens.

“But what if you’re a citizen?... It just seems to be happening a lot,” pressed Manríquez.

But Norman said he doesn’t “believe that,” highlighting concerns about alleged undocumented gang members in the country when Manríquez cited reports that U.S. veterans are getting dragged into ICE’s deportation machine.

At least one veteran has so far been detained by the aggressive agency: George Retes, a 25-year-old disabled veteran, was detained on July 10 while at work on a California farm. He was held for three days by ICE officials without access to legal representation and without any charges against him, according to Representative Pramila Jayapal’s office.

Jayapal introduced legislation Wednesday—the “Stop ICE from Kidnapping US Citizens Act”—to make ICE’s illegal actions even more blatant. The measure would prevent ICE from detaining and deporting U.S. citizens following reports that the agency had been harassing the country’s Latino population, requesting on-demand proof of citizenship.

But Norman isn’t the only lawmaker to disregard the alarming cases. Nehls attempted to undermine the traumatizing nature of detention when asked if he cared about the arrested citizens, telling Manríquez that the media shouldn’t “spin” detention for “more than it really is.”

“Are you detained for more than three days?” Nehls asked rhetorically, waving his cigar.

“In some cases, yeah,” responded Manríquez.

“Well, maybe people can’t prove that they’re American citizens, either, have the documentation,” Nehls said, apparently at a loss for words, though he did mention that he believed Homan was doing a “hell of a job.”

“It’s not a big problem. It really, really isn’t,” Nehls added.

Tuberville’s sensitive advice to Americans concerned about being illegally detained by plainclothed undercover ICE agents was simple: “First of all, don’t put yourself in a situation where that happens.”

“I’m sure with the illegals we have in this country, some mistakes happen, that always—that’s gone happen,” Tuberville said, before directing Americans to disengage from undocumented communities. “But if you are gonna be hanging around people who are not citizens of this country, some things like that are going to probably happen.”

“Don’t hang around illegals,” he warned.

Tuberville had no advice for mixed-status families.

President Trump once again raised questions surrounding his mental acuity after he seemed to forget that he was the person who appointed Federal Reserve Chair Jerome Powell, while he was in the middle of admonishing Powell for not capitulating to his economic plan.

“He’s a terrible, he’s a terrible fed chair,” Trump said of Powell on Wednesday. “I’m surprised he was appointed, I was surprised frankly that Biden put him in and extended him.” 

It was in fact Trump, not Biden, who put Powell “in.” The president nominated Powell for Fed chair in November of 2017, to replace Janet Yellen. 

The incident came just after multiple reports revealed that Trump has a secret letter firing Powell, and he has been asking Republican lawmakers whether he should send it.

This is also a major slip-up from Trump, the result of both his strong inclination to blame anything he doesn’t like on the previous administration and genuine mental decline. This is not the first time Trump’s mental fog has shown itself, even as he is just barely halfway through the first year of his second term. He went on an unrelated tangent about his summer vacation plans earlier this month when he was asked a very basic question about how long detainees would be kept in the Alligator Alcatraz detention camp, and famously confused Nancy Pelosi and Nikki Haley up at a campaign event last year. These are just one of many examples. Who knows what Trump’s mind will look like at the end of this term.  

The Department of Homeland Security used a painting to evoke themes of xenophobia, white supremacy, and a glorification of Manifest Destiny—all without seeking the approval of Morgan Weistling, the artist who painted it. 

On Monday, the DHS posted Weistling’s painting with an incorrect title, calling it “New Life in a New Land,” rather than the original “A Prayer for New Life.” 

Weistling made himself and his grievances known shortly thereafter. 

“Attention!  I DID NOT give the DHS permission to use my painting in their recent postings on their official web platforms,” he wrote on his website. “They used a painting I did 5 years ago and re-titled it and posted it without my permission. It is a violation of my copyright on the painting.  It was a surprise to me and I am trying to gather how this happen and what to do next. Thank you for those of you that let me know about it.” Weistling posted similar statements on Facebook and Instagram, adding that the news ruined his family vacation.

The DHS post is troubling for a few reasons. What made them change the title of the painting to a much more land-centered, migration-centered message? Did they just think that Weistling would have no issue with having his painting used without permission and compensation? But most troubling in all this is the timing, as the incendiary, thinly-veiled white supremacist language comes as the Trump administration is in the midst of a massive immigration crackdown in which ICE has effectively opened a concentration camp, set wild new arrest quotas, and openly admitted to racial profiling Latinos. 

“I am amazed that they thought they could randomly post an artist’s painting without permission,” Weistling said in his Instagram post. “They even re-titled it.”