Spartacus Blog

Donald Trump and the Deep State

Donald Trump often talks about the Deep State as a group of organisations that frustrate him in his attempts to run the country in the way he wants. As early as March 2017, White House Press Secretary Sean Spicer acknowledged that the administration did indeed believe in the existence of a Deep State. "I think that there's no question when you have eight years of one party in office that there are people who stay in government - affiliated with, joined - and continue to espouse the agenda of the previous administration, so I don't think it should come to any surprise that there are people that burrowed into government during the eight years of the last administration and may have believed in that agenda and want to continue to seek it." (1)

Trump believed in his first term that the previous Democratic Party administration was part of the Deep State. He also argued that the FBI and the Justice Department appeared to be part of the Deep State as they were protecting the previous administration. In January 2018, he began asking questions about the CIA not investigating Democrats relationship with foreign agents. In May 2018, he accused the "Criminal Deep State" of going after "Phony Collusion with Russia, a made-up Scam". (2)

Deep State in 2018

An anonymous article appeared in the New York Times on 5th September 2018, that claimed that appointees in the Trump administration were working to thwart his "misguided impulses". He went onto argue: "The dilemma - which he does not fully grasp - is that many of the senior officials in his own administration are working diligently from within to frustrate parts of his agenda and his worst inclinations. I would know. I am one of them. To be clear, ours is not the popular 'resistance' of the left. We want the administration to succeed and think that many of its policies have already made America safer and more prosperous. But we believe our first duty is to this country, and the president continues to act in a manner that is detrimental to the health of our republic." It was later revealed that the article was written by Miles Taylor, chief of staff in the Department of Homeland Security. (3)

President Trump went on Twitter to say that he believed the New York Times article rises to the level of treason. He demanded that the newspaper turned over its source, because the person is a national security threat. President Trump now expanded the Deep State into including "the Left" and the "Fake News Media". (4)

Trump, in other words, sees the U.S. government as infected by "Unelected, deep state operatives who defy the voters, to push their own secret agendas." Those "operatives," he told a rally in 2018, are "truly a threat to democracy itself." Rebecca Gordon has argued that the Deep State was what "President Obama encountered when he decided to shut down the George W. Bush-era CIA torture program and found that the price for compliance was a promise not to prosecute anyone for crimes committed in the so-called war on terror." (5)

JFK Assassination and the Deep State

However, the Deep State was originally a left/liberal idea that emerged after the assassination of John F. Kennedy on 22 November 1963. Later that day Lee Harvey Oswald was taken into custody. Two days later Oswald was shot and mortally wounded in the basement of Dallas Police headquarters by Jack Ruby. (6)

The President's Commission on the Assassination of President Kennedy, known unofficially as the Warren Commission, was established by President Lyndon B. Johnson on November 29, 1963, to investigate the assassination of John F. Kennedy. (7)

Zapruder film was not shown on network television until March 1975

On 24 September 1964 the Warren Commission's 888-page final report was presented to President Johnson and made public three days later, saying one shot wounded President John F. Kennedy and Governor John Connally, and a subsequent shot hit Kennedy in the head, killing him. The Commission concluded a third shot was fired but made no conclusion as to whether it was the first, second or third shot fired. The Commission concluded Oswald fired all three shots. (8)

However, most people in the United States did not believe the conclusions of the Warren Commission. The polling organisation Gallup first asked Americans about culpability in Kennedy's assassination immediately after the event and found a slim 52% majority believed there was "some group or element" other than the gunman involved, while 29% thought he acted on his own and 19% were unsure. After the publication of the Warren Report 36% said it was the work of one man, half thought others were involved, and 15% did not know. By the early 1970s over 80% of those polled by Gallup that "some group or element" other than the gunman was involved in the assassination. (9)

Even though most of the people disagreed with the conclusions of the Warren Report the mainstream media continued to promote the idea that Lee Harvey Oswald was the lone gunman. People began to ask questions about the relationship between politicians, the intelligence services and the media. This was especially true of the journal The Minority of One, whose board of sponsors included Bertrand Russell, Albert Schweitzer and Linus Pauling. Contributors to the magazine included Mark Lane, Sylvia Meagher and Vincent Salandria. (10)

Operation Mockingbird

Was there a Deep State that was keeping the truth from the American people? As M. S. Arnoni pointed out in 1966: "There are in our midst exceptional people... journalists and writers, amateur and professional, who have been making no less than heroic efforts to unravel the answers to how, who and what - for John F. Kennedy was felled… to them belongs the praise of future generations." (11)

The CIA became uncomfortable by the small number of writers who began questioning the truth of the Warren Commission Report. Frank Church began an investigation entitled Select Committee to Study Governmental Operations with Respect to Intelligence Activities he managed to get the following CIA document released. Signed by Clayton P. Nurnad on April 1, 1967, it was sent to "chiefs, certain stations and bases" with the instructions "Destroy when no longer needed". Clayton P. Nurnad was the pseudonym of Cord Meyer, Chief of CIA's Covert Action Staff (he was also head of Operation Mockingbird at the time). The document argues that: "From the day of President Kennedy's assassination on, there has been speculation about the responsibility for his murder. Although this was stemmed for a time by the Warren Commission report, (which appeared at the end of September 1964), various writers have now had time to scan the Commission's published report and documents for new pretexts for questioning, and there has been a new wave of books and articles criticizing the Commission's findings. In most cases the critics have speculated as to the existence of some kind of conspiracy, and often they have implied that the Commission itself was involved. Presumably as a result of the increasing challenge to the Warren Commission's report, a public opinion poll recently indicated that 46% of the American public did not think that Oswald acted alone, while more than half of those polled thought that the Commission had left some questions unresolved. Doubtless polls abroad would show similar, or possibly more adverse results."

The document then goes on to discuss how the CIA could use the media to deal with these critics: "To discuss the publicity problem with and friendly elite contacts (especially politicians and editors), pointing out that the Warren Commission made as thorough an investigation as humanly possible, that the charges of the critics are without serious foundation, and that further speculative discussion only plays into the hands of the opposition. Point out also that parts of the conspiracy talk appear to be deliberately generated by Communist propagandists. Urge them to use their influence to discourage unfounded and irresponsible speculation."

"To employ propaganda assets to negate and refute the attacks of the critics. Book reviews and feature articles are particularly appropriate for this purpose. The unclassified attachments to this guidance should provide useful background material for passing to assets. Our ploy should point out, as applicable, that the critics are (I) wedded to theories adopted before the evidence was in, (I) politically interested, (III) financially interested, (IV) hasty and inaccurate in their research, or (V) infatuated with their own theories. In the course of discussions of the whole phenomenon of criticism, a useful strategy may be to single out Epstein's theory for attack, using the attached Fletcher article and Spectator piece for background." (12)

The first real evidence of the Deep State came from the publication in April 1975 of the Final Report of the Select Committee to Study Governmental Operations with Respect to Intelligence Activities. According to the Congress report: "The CIA currently maintains a network of several hundred foreign individuals around the world who provide intelligence for the CIA and at times attempt to influence opinion through the use of covert propaganda. These individuals provide the CIA with direct access to a large number of newspapers and periodicals, scores of press services and news agencies, radio and television stations, commercial book publishers, and other foreign media outlets." Church argued that the cost of misinforming the world cost American taxpayers an estimated $265 million a year. "In examining the CIA's past and present use of the U.S. media, the Committee finds two reasons for concern. The first is the potential, inherent in covert media operations, for manipulating or incidentally misleading the American public. The second is the damage to the credibility and independence of a free press which may be caused by covert relationships with the U.S. journalists and media organizations.". (13)

A few months later, in June 1975, Thomas Braden, a senior officer in the CIA gave an interview to the UK Granada Television program, World in Action: The Rise and Fall of the CIA. Braden was head of the International Organizations Division (IOD) of the CIA. The IOD was dedicated to infiltrating academic, trade and political associations. The objective was to control potential radicals and to steer them to the right. The IOD never had to account for the money it spent. There was simply no limit to the money it could spend and no limit to the people it could hire and no limit to the activities it could decide were necessary to conduct the war - the secret war.... It was a multinational. Maybe it was one of the first. Braden pointed out "If the director of CIA wanted to extend a present, say, to someone in Europe - a Labour leader - suppose he just thought: This man can use fifty thousand dollars, he's working well and doing a good job - he could hand it to him and never have to account to anybody... Politicians in Europe, particularly right after the war, got a lot of money from the CIA." Braden admitted that journalists were also bribed with money to write stories favourable to the CIA. He pointed out that they targeted those on the left because right-wing journalists could be trusted to write these articles for free. (14)

Carl Bernstein, who did pioneering work in exposing the Watergate Scandal, published an amazing article, CIA and the Media in the Rolling Stone Magazine in October 1977. "In 1953, Joseph Alsop, then one of America's leading syndicated columnists, went to the Philippines to cover an election. He did not go because he was asked to do so by his syndicate. He did not go because he was asked to do so by the newspapers that printed his column. He went at the request of the CIA. Alsop is one of more than 400 American journalists who in the past twenty-five years have secretly carried out assignments for the Central Intelligence Agency, according to documents on file at CIA headquarters."

Bernstein then goes on to explain detail how the relationship between journalists and the CIA worked: "Some of these journalists' relationships with the Agency were tacit; some were explicit. There was cooperation, accommodation and overlap. Journalists provided a full range of clandestine services - from simple intelligence gathering to serving as go-betweens with spies in Communist countries. Reporters shared their notebooks with the CIA. Editors shared their staffs. Some of the journalists were Pulitzer Prize winners, distinguished reporters who considered themselves ambassadors-without-portfolio for their country. Most were less exalted: foreign correspondents who found that their association with the Agency helped their work; stringers and freelancers who were as interested it the derring-do of the spy business as in filing articles, and, the smallest category, full-time CIA employees masquerading as journalists abroad. In many instances, CIA documents show, journalists were engaged to perform tasks for the CIA with the consent of the managements America's leading news organizations."

Although understandably he did not mention his own employer, The Washington Post, Bernstein was willing to name some of the other publishers involved in this CIA's project: "Among the executives who lent their cooperation to the Agency were William Paley of the Columbia Broadcasting System, Henry Luce of Time Inc., Arthur Hays Sulzberger of the New York Times, Barry Bingham Sr. of the Louisville Courier-Journal and James Copley of the Copley News Service. Other organizations which cooperated with the CIA include the American Broadcasting Company, the National Broadcasting Company, the Associated Press, United Press International, Reuters, Hearst Newspapers, Scripps-Howard, Newsweek magazine, the Mutual Broadcasting System, The Miami Herald , and the old Saturday Evening Post and New York Herald-Tribune . By far the most valuable of these associations, according to CIA officials, have been with The New York Times, CBS, and Time Inc. (15)

The first time the term Operation Mockingbird was used to describe the relationship between the CIA and the media was in Deborah Davis's book, Katharine the Great: Katherine Graham and the Washington Post (1979). When the book was originally published Katharine Graham (probably under instructions from the CIA) persuaded the publishers William Jovanovich, to pulp 20,000 copies of the book and very few reached the book shops. In the book, Davis argued that staff of The Washington Post, including its publisher, Phil Graham, and its editor, Ben Bradlee, were key figures in Mockingbird. She also pointed out that Frank Wisner and Cord Meyer ran Mockingbird at the CIA. (16)

To some JFK researchers, Operation Mockingbird was an important part of the Deep State. According to the Oxford Dictionary the definition of the Deep State is: "a body of people, typically influential members of government agencies or the military, believed to be involved in the secret manipulation or control of government policy." In recent years it has been argued that search-engines such as Google might be under the control of the CIA. (17) It has also been suggested that Wikipedia have become part of this network that enables this Deep State to control the information that the public receives. (18)

An important figure into the research into the death of John F. Kennedy, the former diplomat, Peter Dale Scott, has used the term "Deep Politics" rather than the "Deep State". Scott argues in his book, Deep Politics and the Death of JFK (1996) that Deep Politics involves hidden agendas, secret deals, and clandestine operations that are not publicly known or transparent. He highlights the ways in which powerful individuals, corporations, or organizations can exert influence on political decisions, even without holding formal office. (19)

Peter Dale Scott published his book American Deep State: Big Money, Big Oil, and the Struggle for U.S. Democracy in 2017. In this book Scott makes a compelling case for a hidden deep state of intelligence agencies, private companies, and billionaires that influence and often oppose U.S. government policies. (20)

Donald Trump and the JFK Assassination

Donald Trump first became interested in the JFK assassination when he was campaigning against Ted Cruz in his efforts to become the Republican candidate for president in 2016. Trump suggested that Rafael Cruz, his opponent's father, was connected to Lee Harvey Oswald. "His father was with Lee Harvey Oswald prior to Oswald's being - you know, shot… I mean, what was he doing - what was he doing with Lee Harvey Oswald shortly before the death? Before the shooting?" (21)

During the 2016 campaign Trump promised to release the remaining classified JFK assassination documents. However, this did not happen, and it was not until November 2022, after Trump left office, that it was revealed why he did not keep his promise. Released internal correspondence from the National Archives and Records Administration showed that, behind the scenes, there has been a fierce bureaucratic war over the documents pitting the Archives against the CIA, FBI and other agencies that want to keep them secret. Philip Shenon reported: "The correspondence, obtained under the Freedom of Information Act, shows that the Archives has tried, and often failed, to insist that other agencies comply with the 1992 law by declassifying more documents. The struggle was especially fierce in 2017, when then-President Donald Trump sided with the CIA and FBI and agreed to waive a supposedly concrete legal deadline that year to release all classified documents related to the JFK assassination." (22)

Donald Trump explained in an interview with the Fox News host Sean Hannity on 22 January 2023 that it was Mike Pompeo, the Director of the CIA, who was the reason he did not release files about President John F. Kennedy's assassination during his first term. "He said that Mike Pompeo begged him... called him and said, this would be a catastrophe to release these." (23)

Trump insisted during the 2024 presidential campaign that he would not allow the CIA and FBI to block the Kennedy assassination files if he won the election. This time he meant it. Soon after he took office Trump issued an executive order, announcing that documents related to the assassinations of former US President John F. Kennedy (JFK), his younger brother, Senator Robert F Kennedy (RFK) and civil rights activist Martin Luther King, Jr (MLK) are to be declassified. The order stated that the families and the US public "deserve transparency and truth". (24)

Federalist Society and the Supreme Court

During his campaign Trump gave the impression the Deep State was against him. This included the FBI, the CIA, the mainstream media, and federal officials appointed by Democratic administrations. Those on the left agree about the FBI, the mainstream media, but add the leaders of both political parties, the Supreme Court and those wealthy individuals who provide large donations to both the Republicans and Democrats. In a recent documentary, Wealth of the Wicked, written and directed by Alex Gibney, he argues that the Supreme Court is now part of the Deep State. In the documentary Alex Gibney makes full use of the research carried out by Jane Mayer for her book Dark Money: The Hidden History of the Billionaires Behind the Rise of the Radical Right (2017). The story begins with the establishment by Steven Calabresi of the Federalist Society in 1982. It began as a student organization which sought to challenge liberal ideology in American law schools. (25)

The group's first activity was a three-day symposium titled "A Symposium on Federalism: Legal and Political Ramifications" held at Yale in April 1982. The symposium, which was attended by 200 people, was organized by Steven Calabresi, Lee Liberman Otis, and David M. McIntosh; it included speakers such as Antonin Scalia, Robert Bork, and Theodore Olson. The journalist, Michael Kruse, wrote an article entitled, The Weekend at Yale That Changed American Politics that "it is no exaggeration to suggest that it was perhaps the most effective student conference ever - a blueprint, in retrospect, for how to marry youthful enthusiasm with intellectual oomph to achieve far-reaching results." (26)

Calabresi served under presidents Ronald Reagan and George H. W. Bush from 1985 to 1990. He made suggestions about who should join the Supreme Court. Calabresi, a Catholic, was keen to have judges who were not only conservative but held strong anti-abortion views. On September 25, 1981, Reagan appointed Sandra Day O'Connor to the Supreme Court. Reagan wrote in his diary: "Called Judge O'Connor and told her she was my nominee for supreme court. Already the flak is starting and from my own supporters. Right to Life people say she is pro-abortion. She declares abortion is personally repugnant to her. I think she'll make a good justice." (27)

In September 1986, Reagan appointed William Rehnquist to the Supreme Court. A staunch conservative, Rehnquist, served as a legal adviser for Republican presidential nominee Barry Goldwater in the 1964 U.S. presidential election. During his confirmation hearings, Rehnquist was criticized for opposing the Supreme Court's decision in Brown v. Board of Education (1954) and taking part in voter suppression efforts targeting minorities as a lawyer in the early 1960s. It has been claimed that he committed perjury during the hearings by denying his suppression efforts despite at least ten witnesses to the acts. He also defended segregation by private businesses in the early 1960s on the grounds of freedom of association. During the hearing, Senator Edward Kennedy called Rehnquist "insensitive to minorities and women's rights". (28)

Antonin Scalia joined the Supreme Court on September 26, 1986. A devout Catholic, in the early 1970s Scalia served in the Richard Nixon administration, eventually becoming an assistant attorney general under President Gerald Ford. He believed that the U.S. Constitution permitted the death penalty and did not guarantee the right to either abortion or same-sex marriage. Furthermore, Scalia viewed affirmative action and other policies that afforded special protected status to minority groups as unconstitutional. Such positions would earn him a reputation as one of the most conservative justices on the Court. Scalia argued that there is no constitutional right to abortion and that if the people desire legalized abortion, a law should be passed to accomplish it. (29)

President Ronald Reagan nominated Robert Bork for associate justice of the Supreme Court on 1 July, 1987. Senator Ted Kennedy took to the Senate floor with a strong condemnation of him, declaring: "Robert Bork's America is a land in which women would be forced into back-alley abortions, blacks would sit at segregated lunch counters, rogue police could break down citizens' doors in midnight raids, schoolchildren could not be taught about evolution, writers and artists could be censored at the whim of the Government, and the doors of the Federal courts would be shut on the fingers of millions of citizens for whom the judiciary is - and is often the only - protector of the individual rights that are the heart of our democracy.... The damage that President Reagan will do through this nomination, if it is not rejected by the Senate, could live on far beyond the end of his presidential term. President Reagan is still our president. But he should not be able to reach out from the muck of Irangate, reach into the muck of Watergate and impose his reactionary vision of the Constitution on the Supreme Court and the next generation of Americans. No justice would be better than this injustice." (30)

Anthony McLeod Kennedy took his place on the Supreme Court on February 18, 1988. He was another Catholic and conservative justice. Vanity Fair quoted several former Supreme Court clerks as indicating that they believe Kennedy was often swayed by the opinions of his clerks. One clerk derisively stated that "the premise is that he can't think by himself, and that he can be manipulated by someone in his second year of law school". This notion also led the Federalist Society to target Kennedy with more conservative clerks, believing this would make Kennedy more conservative. (31)

George H. W. Bush appointed David Souter to join the Supreme Court on May 25, 1990. At the time of Souter's appointment, John Sununu assured President George H. W. Bush and conservatives that Souter would be a "home run" for conservatism. Nine senators voted against Souter who argued Souter was an extreme conservative with views like those of Robert Bork. However, in office Souter moved toward the ideological middle. Souter decided to retire in May 2009. (32)

Justice Thurgood Marshall announced his retirement on June 27, 1991, and Bush nominated Clarence Thomas to replace him. Bush was warned that replacing Marshall with any candidate who was not perceived to share Marshall's views would make confirmation difficult. Thomas was a devout Catholic and was opposed by abortion-rights groups. He was also a member of the right-wing Federalist Society. On July 31, 1991, the board of directors of the NAACP voted against endorsing Thomas, announcing their opposition to his confirmation the same day. (33)

At the conclusion of the committee's confirmation hearings, the Senate was debating whether to give final approval to Thomas's nomination. An FBI interview with Anita Hill, a former colleague of Thomas at the EEOC, was soon leaked to the press and allegations of sexual harassment followed. The committee then questioned Hill for seven hours. She testified that ten years earlier Thomas had subjected her to comments of a sexual nature. On October 15, 1991, the Senate voted to confirm Thomas as an associate justice, 52–48. (34)

Even after Steven Calabresi left the White House in 1990 the Federalist Society continued to influence the selection of members of the Supreme Court. Of the current nine members of the Supreme Court of the United States, at least five are current or former members of the organization - Brett Kavanaugh, Neil Gorsuch, Clarence Thomas, Samuel Alito, and Amy Coney Barrett. Chief Justice John Roberts previously served as a member of the steering committee of the Washington, D.C., chapter, but denies ever being a member. (35)

Steven Calabresi also developed a system where he helped develop contacts between extremely wealthy individuals and members of the Supreme Court. It was Calabresi who was the motivating force behind Citizens United v. Federal Election Commission submission to the United States Supreme Court regarding campaign finance laws. The Supreme Court found that laws restricting the political spending of corporations and unions are inconsistent with the Free Speech Clause of the First Amendment to the U.S. Constitution. The 5-4 majority held that the prohibition of all independent expenditures by corporations and unions in the Bipartisan Campaign Reform Act violated the First Amendment. (36)

The ruling barred restrictions on corporations, unions, and nonprofit organizations from independent expenditures, allowing groups to independently support political candidates with financial resources. In a dissenting opinion, Justice John Paul Stevens, a registered Republican and considered a man with conservative opinions, argued: "Going forward, corporations and unions will be free to spend as much general treasury money as they wish on ads that support or attack specific candidates, whereas national parties will not be able to spend a dime of soft money on ads of any kind. The Court's ruling thus dramatically enhances the role of corporations and unions - and the narrow interests they represent - and the broad coalitions they represent - in determining who will hold public office. In a democratic society, the longstanding consensus on the need to limit corporate campaign spending should outweigh the wooden application of judge-made rules.... At bottom, the Court's opinion is thus a rejection of the common sense of the American people, who have recognized a need to prevent corporations from undermining self-government since the founding, and who have fought against the distinctive corrupting potential of corporate electioneering since the days of Theodore Roosevelt. It is a strange time to repudiate that common sense. While American democracy is imperfect, few outside the majority of this Court would have thought its flaws included a dearth of corporate money in politics." (37)

President Barack Obama stated that the decision "gives the special interests and their lobbyists even more power in Washington - while undermining the influence of average Americans who make small contributions to support their preferred candidates". (38) Obama later stated that "this ruling strikes at our democracy itself" and "I can't think of anything more devastating to the public interest". (39)

Just days after the ruling, Obama condemned the decision during his 2010 State of the Union Address, stating that, "Last week, the Supreme Court reversed a century of law to open the floodgates for special interests - including foreign corporations - to spend without limit in our elections. Well, I don't think American elections should be bankrolled by America's most powerful interests, or worse, by foreign entities." (40)

President Obama's fears turned into reality. As a result of this ruling Independent Expenditure-Only Political Action Committees, better known as Super PACs, were formed. These were legally allowed to fundraise unlimited amounts of money from individuals or organisations for the purpose of campaign advertising. Many super PACs are candidate-oriented but some focus on specific issues, an industry or a piece of legislation. (41)

The Open Secrets pressure group argued that "The 2020 election attracted record amounts of donations from dark money groups to political committees like super PACs. These groups are required to reveal their backers, but they can hide the true source of funding by reporting a non-disclosing nonprofit or shell company as the donor. By using this tactic, dark money groups can get around a 2020 court ruling that attempts to require nonprofits running political ads to reveal their donors." (42)

QAnon and the Deep State

During the 2016 presidential campaign the personal email account of John Podesta, campaign manager, Hillary Clinton, was hacked. It was falsely claimed that the emails contained coded messages that connected several high-ranking Democratic Party officials with an alleged human trafficking and child sex ring. One of the establishments allegedly involved was the Comet Ping Pong Pizzeria in Washington, D.C. The restaurant's owner and staff received death threats from conspiracy theorists. Edgar M. Welch, a 28-year-old father of two from Salisbury, N.C., became convinced the pizza restaurant was harbouring young children as sex slaves as part of a child-abuse ring led by Hillary Clinton. When he arrived at the restaurant to break the lock on a door to a storage room during his search. (43)

The following year QAnon, a far-right American political conspiracy theory and political movement was formed. Their core belief is that a cabal of Satanic, cannibalistic child molesters in league with the Deep State is operating a global child sex trafficking ring and that Donald Trump is secretly leading the fight against them. QAnon followers believe the cabal includes Democratic Party politicians like Joe Biden, Barack Obama and Barack Obama and business people like George Soros and Bill Gates. President Donald Trump's former national security adviser Mike Flynn has sworn allegiance to the movement. Trump himself has repeatedly retweeted posts from QAnon-related accounts and there are a number of Republican congressional candidates who either openly believe in these conspiracy theories (like Marjorie Taylor Greene in Georgia) or have expressed varying measures of sympathy with them (including Lauren Boebert in Colorado, Theresa Raborn in Illinois, Mike Cargile in California, Joe Rae Perkins in Oregon and Erin Cruz in California). During the first presidency of Donald Trump, QAnon followers believed the administration would conduct arrests and executions of thousands of members of the cabal. They were very disappointed when this did not happen. (44)

Jeffrey Epstein

Once out of power Trump expressed regret that he had not released the JFK assassination files. He also claimed that other possible conspiracies, especially those that involved leading Democratic politicians such as Joe Biden and Bill Clinton. The Make America Great Again (MAGA) movement took Trump's campaign in favour of transparency seriously. One of the cases they were interested in was the Jeffery Epstein case as it was rumoured that several Democrat politicians had been involved in having sex with underage girls. Maybe this was the reason why Biden had not released the Epstein files when he was in office. (45)

The problem for Trump was that for many years his critics had been suggesting that he had been involved in Epstein's sex crimes. The first evidence we have of Trump and Epstein being friends is in a video of them November 1992 laughing and talking at a party at Mar-a-Lago. (46)

Donald Trump had asked George Houraney, a Florida-based businessman who ran American Dream Enterprise to organise a "calendar girl" competition: "I arranged to have some contestants fly in," Houraney recalled in an interview with The New York Times. I said, "Who's coming tonight? I have 28 girls coming." Trump replied It was him and Epstein. said he was surprised. "I said, ‘Donald, this is supposed to be a party with V.I.P.s. You're telling me it's you and Epstein?'" "I said, ‘Look, Donald, I know Jeff really well, I can't have him going after younger girls,'" Houraney remembers. "He said, ‘Look I'm putting my name on this. I wouldn't put my name on it and have a scandal.'" (47)

At that time Epstein was running his financial management firm, J. Epstein & Company. The company was said by Epstein to have been formed to manage the assets of clients with more than US$1 billion in net worth. The only publicly known billionaire client of Epstein was Leslie Wexner, chairman and CEO of Bath and Body Works. The previous year Wexner had granted Epstein full power of attorney over his affairs. The power of attorney allowed Epstein to hire people, sign checks, buy and sell properties, borrow money, and do anything else of a legally binding nature on Wexner's behalf. (48)

In 1993 former Sports Illustrated swimsuit model Stacey Williams alleged that Trump groped her in front of Jeffrey Epstein when she visited Trump Tower. "The second he (Trump) was in front of me, he pulled me into him, and his hands were just on me and didn't come off," Williams said on CNN that Trump greeted her and his hands touched "the side of my breasts, on my hips, back down to my butt, back up... they were just on me the whole time", while Epstein and the former president smiled and talked to each other. (49)

In December 1993, Epstein attended Trump's wedding to Marla Maples. During the next four years Trump took at least eight flights on Epstein's private jet, according to flight logs released by the Department of Justice. Trump continued to be seen socially with Epstein. This included Trump and Melania were photographed with Epstein and Ghislaine Maxwell at Mar-a-Lago. (50)

According to Social Security records submitted to the court during Virginia Giuffre's defamation case against Maxwell, Giuffre was employed at Mar-A-Lago Club LLC in 2000 and earned $1,866.50 during that calendar year. Giuffre accused Maxwell of recruiting her while she was working as a locker-room attendant at Mar-A-Lago in 2000 and bringing her to Epstein's home for a massage. She claims that she eventually became a "teen sex slave" to Epstein, and a victim of sex trafficking, beginning at age 17, at the hands of both Epstein and Maxwell. Donald Trump later suggested that Jeffrey Epstein "stole" Virginia Giuffre and other young female staffers whom he hired away from the president's Mar-a-Lago country club. (51)

Trump told Landon Thomas Jr, of the New York Magazine in October 2002 that Epstein is a "terrific guy" and that they have known each other for 15 years. "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. No doubt about it - Jeffrey enjoys his social life" Trump said. (52)

In January 2003, Trump allegedly sent Epstein a "bawdy" letter that was included in a book made for Epstein's 50th birthday, the Wall Street Journal reported. (53) According to The Washington Post in 2004 Trump and Epstein reportedly had a falling out after a competition to purchase a Palm Beach mansion called Maison de l'Amitie. (54)

This was convenient date because just a few months later, local police began investigating allegations that Epstein was sexually abusing minors. According to The Washington Post, in November 2004, Palm Beach police were told about a young women coming and going from Epstein's home. (55)

In March 2005, a woman contacted Florida's Palm Beach Police Department and alleged that her 14-year-old stepdaughter had been taken to Epstein's mansion by an older girl. While there, she was allegedly paid $300 to strip and massage Epstein. Palm Beach Police began a 13-month undercover investigation of Epstein, including a search of his home. (56) During the investigation, Palm Beach Police Chief Michael Reiter publicly accused the Palm Beach County state prosecutor, Barry Krischer, of being too lenient and called for help from the FBI. (57)

Eventually the police alleged that Jeffrey Epstein had paid several girls to perform sexual acts with him. Interviews with five alleged victims and seventeen witnesses under oath, items found in Epstein's trash and home allegedly showed that some of the girls involved were under 18, the youngest being 14, with many under 16. The police search of Epstein's home found two hidden cameras and large numbers of photos of girls throughout the house, some of whom the police had interviewed in the course of their investigation. (58)

Details from the investigation included allegations that 12-year-old triplets were flown in from France for Epstein's birthday and flown back the following day after being sexually abused by the financier. It was alleged that young girls were recruited from Brazil and other South American countries, former Soviet countries, and Europe, and that Jean-Luc Brunel's "MC2" modelling agency was also supplying girls to Epstein. (59)

Adriana Ross, a former model from Poland who became an Epstein assistant, reportedly removed computer drives and other electronic equipment from the financier's Florida mansion before Palm Beach Police searched the home as part of their investigation. A former employee told the police that Epstein would receive massages three times a day. Eventually the FBI compiled reports on "34 confirmed minors" eligible for restitution whose allegations of sexual abuse by Epstein included corroborating details. (60) However, Julie K. Brown of the Miami Herald identified 80 victims and located about 60 of them. (61)

On July 27, 2006, Jeffrey Epstein was arrested by the Palm Beach Police Department on state felony charges of procuring a minor for prostitution and solicitation of a prostitute. He was booked at the Palm Beach County jail and later released on a $3,000 bond. State prosecutor Barry Krischer later convened a Palm Beach County grand jury, which was usually only done in capital cases. He presented evidence from only two victims. " A prosecutor flat-out called each of them a prostitute in front of grand jurors.... The grand jury indicted Epstein on only a single charge of solicitation of prostitution � what a "john" soliciting an adult sex worker might face � that was no reflection on the ages of the victims who couldn't consent under state law." (62)

Epstein's defense lawyers included Roy Black, Gerald Lefcourt, Harvard Law School professor Alan Dershowitz, and former U.S. Solicitor General Ken Starr. Professor Steven Pinker also assisted the defence. (63) In July 2006, the FBI began its own investigation of Epstein, nicknamed "Operation Leap Year". It resulted in 53-page indictment in June 2007. Alexander Acosta, then the U.S. Attorney for the Southern District of Florida, agreed to a plea deal, which Alan Dershowitz helped to negotiate, to grant immunity from all federal criminal charges to Epstein, along with four named co-conspirators and any unnamed "potential co-conspirators". According to the Miami Herald, the non-prosecution agreement "essentially shut down an ongoing FBI probe into whether there were more victims and other powerful people who took part in Epstein's sex crimes". At the time, this halted the investigation and sealed the indictment. "Acosta agreed, despite a federal law to the contrary, that the deal would be kept from the victims." Acosta was rewarded for his illegal behaviour by becoming Trump's Secretary of Labor from 2017 to 2019. (64)

Acosta later said he offered a lenient plea deal because he was told that Epstein "belonged to intelligence", was "above his pay grade" and to "leave it alone". Epstein agreed to plead guilty in Florida state court to two felony prostitution charges, serve 18 months in prison, register as a sex offender, and pay restitution to three dozen victims identified by the FBI. The plea deal was later described as a "sweetheart deal". (65)

According to an internal review conducted by the Department of Justice's Office of Professional Responsibility, released in November 2020, Acosta showed "poor judgment" in granting Epstein a non-prosecution agreement and failing to notify Epstein's alleged victims about the agreement. (66)

On June 30, 2008, after Jeffrey Epstein pleaded guilty to a state charge of procuring for prostitution a girl below age 18, he was sentenced to eighteen months in prison. While most convicted sex offenders in Florida are sent to state prison, Epstein was instead housed in a private wing of the Palm Beach County Stockade and, according to the sheriff's office, was, after 3½ months, allowed to leave the jail on "work release" for up to twelve hours a day, six days a week. This contravened the sheriff's own policies requiring a maximum remaining sentence of ten months and making sex offenders ineligible for the privilege. He was allowed to come and go outside of specified release hours. (67)

On July 6, 2019, Epstein was arrested by the FBI-NYPD Crimes Against Children Task Force at Teterboro Airport in New Jersey on charges of sex trafficking during the years 2002 to 2005. He was jailed at the Metropolitan Correctional Center in New York City. According to witnesses and sources on the day of his arrest, about a dozen FBI agents forced open the door to his Manhattan townhouse, the Herbert N. Straus House, with search warrants. The search of his townhouse turned up evidence of sex trafficking and also found hundreds of sexually suggestive photographs of fully - or partially - nude females". Some of the photos were confirmed as those of underage females. (68)

On July 8, prosecutors with the Public Corruption Unit of the Southern District of New York charged Epstein with sex trafficking and conspiracy to traffic minors for sex. The grand jury indictment alleges that "dozens" of underage girls were brought into Epstein's mansions for sexual encounters. (69)

On July 23, 2019, Jeffrey Epstein was found injured and semiconscious at 1:30 a.m. on the floor of his cell, with marks around his neck. His cellmate, former New York City police officer Nicholas Tartaglione, who was awaiting trial for four counts of murder, was questioned about Epstein's condition. He denied having any knowledge of what happened. Correctional staff suspected attempted suicide but did not rule out the possibility it was staged or that he was assaulted by another inmate. (70)

On August 10, 2019, Epstein was found dead in his cell at the Metropolitan Correctional Center (MCC) in New York City. Epstein's brother, Mark Epstein, identified the body. Epstein claims that he hired Dr. Michael Baden, to witness the autopsy on his behalf. "They both came out of the autopsy room and they said they couldn't call it a suicide because it looked too much like a homicide." He questioned why New York City's chief medical examiner, Dr. Barbara Samson, would later declare his brother's death to be a suicide, while accusing her of never personally examining his body or attending the autopsy herself. (71)

Mark Epstein points out that his brother was not on suicide watch and was alone in his cell. Two correctional officers responsible for guarding Epstein that day were later charged with falsifying prison records. Mark Epstein says he thinks another prisoner on the tier could have gotten into his brother's cell and killed him, and that he's been told that not all the cell doors were locked that night. A camera pointing at Epstein's cell door was not recording that night. (72)

The United States Department of Justice's Inspector General's investigation report released on June 27, 2023, criticized jail officials for repeated "negligence, misconduct, and outright job performance failures" in connection with Epstein's incarceration and death. It also denied the suggestion that what happened was anything other than a suicide. (73)

Cyril Wecht, a forensic pathologist, told USA Today that he has doubts about the suicide claims considering the autopsy reportedly showed multiple broken neck bones, including the hyoid bone. Wecht argued: "Fractures of the hyoid bone are almost always associated with manual strangulation, because a hand gets up high underneath the chin of the victim…. Fractures of the hyoid bone in suicide hangings are rare and when you further keep in mind this was not a suicide hanging from stepping off a high ladder." According to reports, Epstein had tied a bed-sheet to the bunk and kneeled on the ground and then leaned forward to kill himself. "In majority of those you don't see fractures because there is no great amount of force," said Wecht. "It's basic physics." (74)

Jean-Luc Brunel's "MC2" modelling agency was supplying girls to Epstein. On 16 December 2020, Brunel was arrested by police at Charles de Gaulle airport in Paris, as he was about to board a flight to Dakar, Senegal. "His arrest was part of a French inquiry into sex trafficking and sexual assault allegations against Epstein, focusing on potential crimes committed against French victims and suspects who are French citizens. Prosecutors suspected Brunel of raping, sexually assaulting and sexually harassing multiple minors and adults. They also suspected him of transporting and housing young girls or young women for Epstein." On 19 February 2022, Brunel was found dead in his jail cell in La Santé prison, after allegedly hanging himself. (75)

QAnon conspiracy theories often involve Democratic politicians having sex with underage girls. This is why the Epstein case was taken up by the MAGA movement. In August 2019, after Epstein's death, Trump retweeted a post that alleged Bill Clinton was connected to Epstein's death. When asked about his retweet in an interview, Trump said "what we're saying is we want an investigation. I want a full investigation, and that's what I absolutely am demanding. That's what our attorney general - our great attorney general - is doing… 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." (76)

In August 2020, during the thick of his re-election campaign, Trump suggested Epstein may have been killed while in federal custody. The comments went against the findings of then-Attorney General William Barr and the New York City medical examiner who ruled the death a suicide. During an interview with Axios reporter Jonathan Swan, Trump was asked about Ghislaine Maxwell, an associate of Epstein who at the time of the interview had just been arrested. "Her boyfriend died in jail. And people are still trying to figure out how did it happen," Trump said. "Was it suicide? Was he killed? And I do wish her well. I'm not looking for anything bad for her." (77)

As he approached the 2024 presidential election Trump had changed his mind about Epstein's death. In August 2023, in an interview with Tucker Carlson, Trump was asked if he believed Epstein committed suicide or not. "Do you think it's possible that Epstein was killed?" Carlson asked. "Oh, sure, it's possible. I mean, I don't really believe - I think he probably committed suicide." (78)

In June 2024, Trump was asked if he would release various files - including the John F. Kennedy and Martin Luther King Jr. assassination files and the Epstein files - during an interview with Fox News. "Would you declassify the Epstein files?" Rachel Campos-Duffy asked. Trump responded, "Yeah, yeah, I would." That clip was circulated widely online, including by the Trump War Room - the social media account of Trump's campaign operation. The account posted it to X with the caption: "President Trump says he will DECLASSIFY the 9/11 Files, JFK Files, and Epstein Files." Trump went on to say in the exchange with Campos-Duffy: "I don't know about Epstein so much as I do the others. Certainly, about the way he died. It'd be interesting to find out what happened there, because that was a weird situation and the cameras didn't happen to be working, etc., etc. But yeah, I'd go a long way toward that one." (79)

In September 2024, Trump made a firm pledge to release Epstein files during a podcast with Lex Fridman. The podcaster said: "it's just very strange for a lot of people that the list of clients that went to the island has not been made public." Fridman asked him if he would release the Epstein files. He replied: "Yeah, I'd certainly take a look at it. Now, Kennedy's interesting because it's so many years ago," Trump said. "They do that for danger too, because it endangers certain people, et cetera, et cetera, so Kennedy is very different from the Epstein thing, but I'd be inclined to do the Epstein. I'd have no problem with it." (80)

On 23 January 2025, President Donald Trump ordered officials to make plans to declassify documents related to three of the most consequential assassinations in US history - the killings of John F. Kennedy, Robert F Kennedy, and Martin Luther King Jr. "A lot of people are waiting for this for long, for years, for decades," Trump told reporters in the Oval Office. "And everything will be revealed." The order directed top administration officials to present a plan to declassify the documents within 15 days. (81)

After his election victory Donald Trump nominated Pamela Jo Bondi as his attorney general. Bondi. In 2020, Bondi was one of Trump's defense lawyers during his first impeachment trial. By 2024, she led the legal arm of the Trump-aligned America First Policy Institute. On Bondi's first day in office, she shut down the FBI's Foreign Influence Task Force and the DOJ's Task Force KleptoCapture, and cut back enforcement of the Foreign Agents Registration Act. (82)

Trump's MAGA supporters began asking when the Jeffery Epstein files would be released. On 27 February 2025, Bondi's team handed out big white binders labelled "The Epstein Files: Phase 1" and "The Most Transparent Administration in History" to a group of 15 right-wing activists and self-styled "citizen journalists" visiting the White House. Arwa Mahdawi pointed out: "Grinning gleefully, these influencers proceeded to pose for the press with the binders like they were trophies from a school sports day. So, what was in those binders? A whole lot of heavily redacted nothing, basically. A bunch of people at Bondi's office appear to have hastily printed out Epstein's contact book, which was published by the (now shuttered) website Gawker a decade ago, along with other information that has been in the public domain for years. They then shoved 200 pages of printouts into binders and gave them to a handpicked collection of useful idiots." (83)

Even Laura Loomer, a white nationalist conspiracy theorist, thought the stunt was distasteful. "I hate to say it, but the American people can't trust the validity of the Epstein files released today. It was released in an unprofessional manner with paid, partisan social media influencers to curate their binders for us. I can't trust anything in the binder. Neither should you." (84)

During a 21 February interview on Fox News, host John Roberts asked Pamela Jo Bondi whether the Department of Justice would release a "list of Jeffrey Epstein's clients." Bondi responded: "It's sitting on my desk right now to review. That's been a directive by President Trump. I'm reviewing that." In other words, Bondi didn't commit to releasing such a list, but she affirmatively indicated it existed and that it was in her possession. And the question was specifically about the purported list – not about other files related to Epstein. Bondi also previously claimed there were "tens of thousands of videos" showing Epstein "with children or child porn". (85)

On 5 June 2005 Elon Musk slamming Trump for "ingratitude" over the 2024 election, agreeing with a call for his impeachment, knocking the president's signature legislation and claimed Trump was in the Epstein files. Musk posted about Trump and Jeffrey Epstein, accused of sex trafficking of minors in 2019, "Time to drop the really big bomb: @realDonaldTrump is in the Epstein files. That is the real reason they have not been made public." (86)

On 7 July 2025 the US Department of Justice and FBI announced that sex offender Jeffrey Epstein did not have a so-called client list that could implicate high-profile associates, and that he did take his own life - contradicting MAGA's long-held conspiracy theories about the case. (87)

The Wall Street Journal later reported that the reason for this decision not to release the client list was that during a briefing on the Justice Department's review of the files in May, Bondi informed Trump that his name was included among the documents. (88)

Elon Musk now returned to the debate on the Epstein files. In one post, Musk called the Trump administration's actions "a cover up (obviously)" and claimed in another that "so many powerful people want that list suppressed." In response to Trump calling the matter the "Epstein Hoax," Musk mockingly wrote, "Wow, amazing that Epstein 'killed himself' and Ghislaine is in federal prison for a hoax." Musk also took a shot at how Trump has handled past issues, listing, "1. Admit nothing; 2. Deny everything; 3. Make counterclaims" - before adding, "But it won't work this time." He also reposted a photo of the binders that Attorney General passed out to MAGA influencers at the White House in February that were labelled "Epstein files: Phase 1." "Where is 'Phase 2'? Musk asked. (89)

Another interesting intervention came from Dimitry Medvedev: "Trump should not think that the video archives of his past immoralities is only in the hands of Mossad." (90) We should not forget it was Alexander Acosta, the U.S. Attorney for the Southern District of Florida, who organised the cover-up of Epstein's crimes when he was originally arrested in 2006. Acosta later explained his behaviour by saying he was told that Epstein "belonged to intelligence", was "above his pay grade" and to "leave it alone". (91)

On Truth Social, Donald Trump offered a stern rebuke to his detractors, claiming that the Epstein files were actually a hoax, because they were written by "Obama, Crooked Hillary, Comey, Brennan, and the Losers and Criminals of the Biden Administration". Some of his most loyal supporters questioned this statement. "This is the worst response I've ever seen from President Trump," said the right-wing commentator, Benny Johnson. Another leading supporter of the MAGA movement, Matt Walsh, called Trump's statement "extremely obtuse", adding: "We don't accept obvious bullshit from our political leaders." Elon Musk and other members of MAGA movement are asking the question: "Will Donald Trump expose the Deep State or is he a member of it?" (92)

Ghislaine Maxwell

Ghislaine Maxwell was arrested and charged by the federal government of the United States in July 2020 with the crimes of enticement of minors and sex trafficking of underage girls, related to her association with Epstein as his recruiter. Prosecutor Lara Pomerantz and Audrey Strauss chose to focus on four out of more than 100 victims. Of the four witnesses only one, Annie Farmer, chose to identify herself. Juan Alessi, Epstein's concierge in Manhattan, provided some of the most damning testimony. The prosecutors said she was hired by Epstein and used these "means to support her lifestyle". Maxwell chose not to testify and therefore did not name anyone who were rumoured to be on Epstein's client list. Maxwell was convicted on five out of six counts, including one of sex trafficking of a minor, in December 2021 she was sentenced to twenty-years in prison. (93)

Ghislaine Maxwell had an interesting background. She was the youngest daughter of Robert Maxwell, the British businessman, who died in suspicious circumstances. On 5 November 1991, Maxwell was on his boat Lady Ghislaine when he seemed to have fallen into the sea. The official ruling at an inquest held in December 1991 was death by a heart attack combined with accidental drowning. Ghislaine disputed this fact and claimed that her father was murdered. (94)

Prince Andrew, Virginia Giuffre and Ghislaine Maxwell (2001)

Maxwell was afforded a lavish funeral in Israel, attended by Israeli Prime Minister Yitzhak Shamir, Israeli President Chaim Herzog, at least six serving and former heads of Israeli intelligence and many dignitaries and politicians, both government and opposition, and was buried on the Mount of Olives in Jerusalem. As the New York Times reported: "Mr. Maxwell, who published The Daily News in New York, The Daily Mirror of London and other newspapers and owned book companies and other enterprises, was a British citizen and a strong supporter of Israel. Yet his relationship with Israel had become a source of contention just before he died, with an American author (Seymour Hersh) suggesting in a new book that he had links with the Mossad, Israel's secret service." (95)

Just before Robert Maxwell died, he sent his daughter, Ghislaine to New York to oversee operations after acquiring the New York Daily News. Some people have claimed that Robert Maxwell already knew Jeffrey Epstein and was helping to manage or shield funds from Maxwell's increasingly unstable businesses. Sources believed Epstein may have laundered Maxwell's money, and then, when Ghislaine turned up in New York, she began a sexual relationship with him. Some have even claimed that Epstein's underage sex operation had been set-up by Mossad. If this was the case, it helps to explain Trump's protection of Israel's actions in Gaza. (96)

On 23 July 2025, James Comer, a Republican who chairs the House Committee on Oversight and Government Reform, subpoenaed Ghislaine Maxwell to sit for a deposition. Comer wrote: "The facts and circumstances surrounding both your and Mr. Epstein's cases have received immense public interest and scrutiny." (97)

On 29 July 2025, Ghislaine Maxwell said she was willing to testify before Congress but only if certain conditions are met, including being granted immunity. Maxwell's lawyer, David Markus, said that Maxwell was willing to testify but that testifying "from prison and without a grant of immunity" were "non-starters". (98)

After US Attorney Todd Blanche, who in 2024 had defended Trump and in 2025 was appointed by Trump in his inaugural cleansing of the DOJ, interviewed Maxwell on 24 and 25 July 2025. The Justice Department gave the convicted sex trafficker limited immunity so that she could discuss her criminal case but did not promise any other benefits in exchange for her testimony, according to the transcript. Maxwell was transferred to a minimum-security prison camp shortly after the interview was completed. (99)

James Comer, the chair of the House Oversight Committee also asked the Department of Justice to release all the documents related to the Jeffrey Epstein case. The first of these documents arrived on 22 nd August. "The Committee intends to make the records public after thorough review to ensure all victims' identification and child sexual abuse material are redacted," said an Oversight Committee spokesperson, granted anonymity to share details about the panel's internal activities. "The Committee will also consult with the DOJ to ensure any documents released do not negatively impact ongoing criminal cases and investigations." If the Justice Department follows precedent, both Democrats and Republicans on House Oversight would get access to the materials. While under a typical arrangement, the majority - in this case Republicans - would control its disclosure. (100)

On 23 August 2025 the Justice Department released the transcripts on the Maxwell interview, which amount to 300 pages, some heavily redacted. Maxwell said that while she believed Trump and Epstein were friendly "in social settings", she did not think they were close friends. Maxwell said exactly what the White House wanted to hear. "I never witnessed the president in any inappropriate setting in any way. The president was never inappropriate with anybody," she said. "In the times that I was with him he was a gentleman in all respects." (101)

According to Steve Benen: "Given that Maxwell seems to be desperately looking for a Trump pardon, her comments were difficult to accept at face value. That said, for House Judiciary Committee Chairman Jim Jordan, it apparently wasn't obvious at all." Jordan had argued: "This confirms what we all knew," Jordan told Fox News the day after the transcript was released. "We knew President Trump didn't do anything wrong here. He said that repeatedly. This transcript is the whole transcript, and it confirms that. So, I think there's nothing there, it seems, based on what we got from the interview of Ms. Maxwell." However, Benen points out the possible motives of Jordan's eagerness to trust the word of a convicted sex trafficker who is looking for a pardon. "I can appreciate why Trump's sycophantic allies are eager to make the Epstein scandal go away, but to pretend that Maxwell has credibility and her claims should be accepted at face value is ridiculous." (102)

Maxwell also told Todd Blanche that the "client list" does not exist. She then goes on to say that her relationship with Epstein was "almost non-existent" between 2010 and his death. She said she found the allegations against the Duke of York "mind-blowingly not conceivable", partly due to the size of her house where the events allegedly took place. She was also asked about a "famous photo" of Prince Andrew and the unnamed woman, with Maxwell in the background. She told Blanche this photo was fake. The prince was accused by Virginia Giuffre, who is not named in the transcript, of sexually abusing her when she was 17. He denied the allegations but reached a financial settlement with her in 2022. (103)

Maxwell also talked about Epstein death in a New York jail cell in 2019 while awaiting trial on sex trafficking charges. "I do not believe he died by suicide, no." However, she then went on to say: "It's ludicrous," she said of theories that he was murdered. "I also happen to think if that is what they wanted they would've had plenty of opportunity when he wasn't in jail." "And if they were worried about blackmail or anything from him, he would've been a very easy target," she added. (104)

Her views on Epstein's murder/suicide seems very confused. She thinks he was murdered but he did not have information to hurt anybody. Even if he did, they could have killed him before he went to prison. That is true, but what would be the point. If he was blackmailing powerful people, he would have made arrangements that this information to come out after his death. It also accepts the idea that Epstein's was running a one-man operation. What was the point of killing Epstein if he was part of an intelligence operation. However, once Epstein was in prison he poses a threat to the intelligence operation and the powerful people he was blackmailing as he could give evidence in court revealing what he knows. His murder shows it was not a one-man operation and that he had some very powerful business associates.